‘Day of Shame’: Sunak apologizes for Britain’s infected blood scandal

Paris: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has issued a harsh apology to the victims and families of one of the country’s worst health failures after a damning report found that blood contaminations that killed 3,000 people and infected more than 30,000 could have been largely avoided.

“This is a day of shame for the British state,” Sunak told MPs in the House of Commons, where he offered an “unconditional and unequivocal apology” for what he said were repeated failures by British officials.

“I’m very sorry,” he said just hours after the publication of a long-awaited report that identified a “catalog of failures” over two decades by government officials and doctors in Britain, most of them avoidable errors. which were later covered up.

The 2,000-page report is the product of a nearly six-year investigation that the British government ordered in 2017 after decades of pressure from victims and their families.