A teenage schoolgirl became her mother’s carer after she fell ill with hepatitis C contracted from infected blood, an inquiry has heard. Danielle Mullan said her mother Marie had been given a transfusion while giving birth to her older brother in 1981 and was diagnosed with hepatitis C after becoming ill in 2003. Giving evidence to the Infected Blood Inquiry hearing in Belfast on Wednesday, she said that she had been about 16 years old and was doing her GCSEs at the time. Ms Mullan, who later tested negative for the virus, said that when other students discovered her mother was infected they treated her like a “leper”. Thousands of patients were infected with HIV and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products in the 1970s and 1980s.

Source: Irish Examiner May 22, 2019 14:54 UTC