How did contaminated blood turn up in the Ministry of Health store rooms? Reem Leila investigates The high-profile case involving contaminated blood bags, the Ministry of Health and NDP MP Hani Sorour, the CEO of Hayedelena for Advanced Medical Industries Company (HAMIC), continues to attract public attention. Sorour's company is charged with supplying 300,000 defective blood bags, valued at LE4 million. Sawsan Mursi and Soheir Abdel-Aziz El-Sharqawi, employees at the Ministry of Health, discovered the contaminated blood bags in storage. The bags, says El-Sharqawi, contained bacteria and fungi likely to harm patients in the event of transfusion. The People's Assembly discussed a report prepared by its legislative committee on the presence of the contaminated blood bags in the Health Ministry's storage during a heated session on Monday. The legislative committee had refused the prosecutor-general's request to lift Sorour's parliamentary immunity, though he later surprised MPs by himself petitioning to have his immunity removed. Emad Abdallah, head of the Public Funds Prosecution, has ordered blood bag samples from the Ministry of Health Medical Supplies Department to be analysed. Police have impounded blood bags, along with documents that allegedly reveal the bags did not meet international standards. The ongoing investigation will focus on the role of the Health Ministry's National Organisation for Drug Control and Research (NODCR), which accepted the blood bags when some 21 blood banks nationwide had refused to deal with the blood supplied from the company owned by Sorour when it applied for tenders in 2005. "Blood in Egypt is perfectly safe and clean," Health Minister Hatem El-Gabali told the joint health committees of the People's Assembly and Shura Council last Sunday. El-Gabali insisted that there was no contaminated blood in Egypt, revealing that of the 300,000 blood bags manufactured by Hayedelena, the ministry supplied blood banks and hospitals with 37,000 last May. The rest were placed in storage. The distributed bags had been approved by NODCR, which certified they met international standards. Yet days after distribution, blood banks and hospitals officials began to report anomalies. They found the bag size larger, the needle thicker and the tube attached to the bags shorter than bags previously imported from Singapore. Following the complaints, the health minister formed an ad hoc committee comprising specialists from five medical faculties. The committee has issued a preliminary report saying 13 per cent of the single blood bags and nine per cent of the double blood bags failed to meet standard specifications. That the anti- coagulant had deteriorated in so many bags implies that the NODCR report confirming the validity date of the bags had been falsified. El-Gabali said the ministry had granted HAMIC a three-month grace period to replace the defective blood bags with others that meet international standards, a request with which Sorour had failed to comply. El-Gabali also revealed that Ashraf El-Ghannam, one of the doctors responsible for the Ministry of Health's blood bank, had confessed, after the scandal was exposed, that he had approved the receipt of the contaminated blood even though he knew the bags to be sub- standard. El-Ghannam has publicly stated that he was under pressure from superiors to approve the blood bags. The US Food and Drug Association (FDA) had warned Sorour as early as 11 August, 2005 that one in ten of HAMIC's blood bags did not meet international specifications. The Ministry of Health also drew HAMIC's attention to the nine basic defects in its products which had resulted in the company's failure to obtain an ISO certificate, the international guarantee of health and medical products. El-Gabali says question marks remain over blood bags that had wormed their way into the ministry's stores, as well as over the NODRC's approval. "All necessary documents for investigation will be presented to the prosecutor-general," said the minister. Mahmoud Zaqzouq, head of Al-Obour Hospital in Kafr Al-Sheikh, mentioned in a statement he addressed by fax to the medical insurance's medical supply and pharmacies unit of the Health Ministry that the latest medical supplies of Hayedelena Company delivered to the hospital were not safe and could not be used. Meanwhile, HAMIC's scientific office, in a recent press conference, claimed the fault lay with the ministry, which had failed to store the bags properly. The Ministry of Health, though, says Sorour, violated the terms of the contract with the company. Sorour told Al-Ahram Weekly that despite some of the objections to the bags being about optional, rather than obligatory standards he would pay the costs of the mistake, which amount to more than LE1 million. Sorour, a member of the National Democratic Party's Policies Committee, also added that he welcomed a full investigation if that would reveal all the facts to the public. The MP also claimed that competitors, who supplied the Health Ministry with blood until ten years ago, were behind the allegations and that the Ministry of Health had not received any complaints about contaminated blood supplies. His company, said Sorour, had acted on the nine "remarks" made by the FDA, taken corrective measures, and will receive its ISO within two or three months. While Article 95 of the constitution forbids MPs from selling or buying any products or properties to or from government entities, HAMIC won the blood bag supply contract in August 2005, four months before Sorour became an MP.
