THE Minister for Health has been urged to trace and notify people infected with hepatitis C before 1976.
The Fianna Fail spokesman on health, Mr Brian Cowen, raised the matter in the Dail last night after reports that a woman was infected in 1970.
The woman subsequently died but did receive compensation from the Hepatitis C Compensation Tribunal.
Mr Cowen said the case was very significant since hepatitis C infection had been associated with events since 1976. This latest case would appear to set a precedent "whereby those infected with hepatitis C through blood or blood products in years prior to 1976 may take claims and receive compensation".
"The Minister for Health needs to clarify as a matter of urgency the circumstances surrounding the infections of person in 1970/71 with hepatitis C," he said.
But the Minister, Mr Noonan, said he was unable to comment because of the imminent publication of the report of the tribunal of inquiry into the controversy. He said the hepatitis C compensation scheme does not make any reference to when claimants may have been infected. Under the terms of reference for the tribunal it had to scrutinise the circumstances of how the anti-D infection occurred.
The woman is understood to have died of liver cancer in 1994 just after the hepatitis C scandal became public, Mr Cowen said.
"When the woman was terminally ill in 1994 her doctor made contact with the blood bank's chief medical consultant. The woman's doctor is understood to have asked that her infection be traced and also that others who may have received blood from the same batch in 1970/71 be traced and notified of the infection.".
Mr Cowen said it had been reported that the response from the BTSB and the former Minister for Health, Mr Howlin, in 1994 was "grim".
He asked how many people had been identified under the 1994 "targeted lookback" programme. "The Minister told me in a recent Dail reply that 270 living recipients have been traced and that only 230 of these have been tested, of whom 128 are antibody positive. I call on the Minister to say why 40 of these people have not been tested and also how many deceased recipients have been identified."