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Japan-AIDS: Japanese prosecuters demand jail for HIV blood scandal official

Agence France-Presse - December 27, 2000

TOKYO, Dec 27 (AFP) - Japanese prosecutors on Wednesday demanded a three-year prison term for a former government official accused of failing to prevent the distribution of contaminated blood, officials said.

Akihito Matsumura, 59, a former health and welfare ministry official, is charged with failing to stop the use of blood products contaminated with the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV).

Prosecutors told the Tokyo District Court that Matsumura was responsible for the deaths from Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) of two haemophiliac and liver patients treated with unheated blood products. They added that Matsumura had been in a position to warn of the danger.

Matsumura was arrested in October 1996, four months after he resigned from the ministry over the scandal.

According to a survey, 1,432 people contracted HIV from unheated blood products and 502 of them have died.

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