TWO women patients, whose infected plasma was later used to make anti D, were themselves infected by plasma supplied by Pelican House, the tribunal of inquiry into the hepatitis C scandal was told yesterday.
In questions relating to patient X, Ms Cecily Cunningham, principal biochemist at the Blood Transfusion Service Board (BTS agreed that this "unfortunately" was so. After July 1977, the board did not use patient X's plasma again, she said.
She told Mr James Nugent SC for the tribunal, that after patient X, there was a patient MJ who was the subject of a plasma exchange programme in 1979. A sample of her plasma tested positive for hepatitis C in 1994, but none was used in the making of anti D.
Patient Y, who also underwent a plasma exchange programme in 1979, had some of her plasma stored at Pelican House for use in the anti D programme. She tested hepatitis C positive in 1994.
Her plasma had not been tested after the birth of her child, and before the exchange programme, in accordance with procedure.
In February 1991, Ms Cunningham requested patient Y be tested. It was not done. She repeated the request in February 1992, but before getting a reply she began making antiD using patient Y's plasma.
She believed Dr Terry Walsh, then the chief medical consultant at the BTSB, had told her the tests would be carried out that month.
"I didn't check to see whether they were done," she said. "I had an accident, we were a bit short (of anti D), I just plodded ahead."
In April of 1992 she began to issue the resulting anti D. She thought the test had been done by then. The results of such tests were conveyed verbally, she said.
"Are you saying that as late as 1991 in the BTSB, records to do with testing were conveyed by a verbal system?" asked Mr Nugent.
"Yes," she replied.
"It wasn't until the 10th of June 1991 that Dr Walsh wrote to patient Y asking for a sample?" asked Mr Nugent.
"Yes," replied Ms Cunningham, "I thought that was strange.".
Patient Y's test proved negative. "She had sero converted, (overcome the hepatitis C virus naturally)?" said Mr Nugent.
"We didn't know that," explained Ms Cunningham.
She agreed patient Y's plasma sample from 1979 was hepatitis C "definitively positive" in 1994, and also agreed patient Y had turned up as an ordinary blood donor on, January 10th, (1996) unaware of any of this.
"It was not my field. It is a matter for the doctors to deal with that."
She agreed with Mr John Rogers, counsel for the McCole family and Positive Action, that in a 1994 report prepared for the former chief executive officer of the BTSB, Mr Ted Keyes, she had made no reference to the fact that patient Y had tested positive four times for hepatitis C on the 1979 plasma sample.
Ms Cunningham disagreed that in doing this she had been "grossly misleading." She had reported the negative tests on patient Y's sample, and was aware of one positive test on patient Y, but it had been described to her as "a false positive", due to thawing.
"It slipped my mind," she said recalling the omission, "we were under terrible pressure at the time."
