BBC News - September 20, 2005

A former MG Rover worker has been awarded £750,000 after contracting a variant form of the HIV virus during an operation at a private hospital.

Alan Best, from Bromsgrove, Worcs, was given a blood transfusion during surgery for pancreatitis at Nuffield Hospital, Birmingham, in 1995.

One of the five blood units he received was infected with the T-Cell Lymphotophic Virus Type 1 (HTLV-1).

The National Blood Service (NBS) admitted providing defective blood.

The NBS had failed to screen it for HTLV-1.

Mr Best has since developed HTLV-associated myelopathy, a rare blood-transmitted disease which affects the central nervous system.

The High Court in Birmingham awarded the 64-year-old £750,000 following seven years of legal action.

Mr Best said he was forced to give up his job as a toolmaker at the former Longbridge factory in 2000. He had worked there for more than 40 years.

He said he began noticing changes a year after the operation when his legs became unsteady.

"Although I had lost more than four stone in weight and had been left very weak (after the operation), I thought it was just a matter of time before I got back to normal.

"Then I started having unsteadiness in my legs.

"On one occasion, whilst I was on holiday in Jersey with my wife, I found that I could not run across the road when I saw a car coming towards me. It felt like I was running on ice."

He gradually lost the sensation in his toes, but it was a further two years before doctors diagnosed HTLV-1.

Mr Best added: "It was suggested that I could have caused myself to be infected, so I felt exonerated when they finally discovered that the blood transfusion was responsible for my illness.

"I thought that after all the HIV incidents, that they screened blood for everything."

In a statement, the NBS said: "Our thoughts are with Mr Best and his family.

'Debilitating illness'

"This rare disease was not tested for at the time in the UK and leucodepletion, which greatly reduces the risk of transmission, was not introduced until 1998/99.

"As such, when the National Blood Service was notified of Mr Best's condition an investigation was promptly co-ordinated and under Consumer Protection legislation laws, a settlement was negotiated.

"The National Blood Service started testing for HTLV in 2002."

Mr Best's solicitor, Timothy Deeming, said: "Sadly this comes too late for Alan who now has to live with a progressively debilitating illness that has left him reliant on the help of others and could ultimately lead to him becoming wheelchair bound."

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