World News for Students of English

08-05-2024 15:00

In the 1970s and 80s, thousands of people in the UK got bad blood. These patients suffered from hemophilia, a genetic disease which affects the body’s ability to stop bleeding.

The blood, which the patients got, came from the US. But the problem was that some of it came from drug users and prisoners, and it was contaminated with hepatitis C and HIV. As a result, 3,000 patients died, and the incident became one of the biggest scandals in Britain. For decades, people called on the government to take responsibility for what happened, and finally, in 2017, prime minister Theresa May called for an inquiry.

Last week, the inquiry decided that the families of victims would receive 125,000 dollars as the first payment before the final settlement.

Difficult words: contaminate (to make something impure by adding a dangerous substance), scandal (an action or event which makes many people angry), inquiry (an official investigation), settlement (an official agreement which solves a problem).

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