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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 3 Hansard (23 March) . . Page.. 685 ..
MR MOORE (continuing):
have been provided. Then Mr Quinlan did something very interesting, Mr Speaker. He said in his supplementary question involving numbers, "And I am sure that the Minister will be expansive". Indeed, Mr Speaker, expansive is the order of the day because I have a four-page answer giving exact details about that. I table that answer. I seek leave to incorporate it in Hansard.
Leave granted.
The answer read as follows -
MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND COMMUNITY CARE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY QUESTION TAKEN ON NOTICE l0 March l999 Mr Quinlan asked the Acting Minister for Health and Community Care:
Last year the Minister announced the Hepatitis C program took on to track people who could have been at risk, identify how many and to provide adequate compensation. How many have been contacted, how many have been infected and what compensation arrangements have been provided? My supplementary involved the numbers and I'm sure the Minister will be expansive.
My answer is as follows (answered by the Minister for Health and Community Care):
The Hepatitis C Lookback process is complex and therefore background information on the subject of hepatitis C and transfusions is relevant. Lookback is a program that seeks to initially identify those persons who have been infected with hepatitis C via a blood transfusion. Additionally persons infected between l January 1985 and end February 1990 may be eligible for financial compensation. The decision regarding this time period and the need for financial assistance is detailed below.
The hepatitis C virus was first discovered in 1989 . However, the existence of a form of hepatitis which was neither Hepatitis A nor Hepatitis B was known for at least twenty years before this. It was also known that this form of hepatitis occurred relatively commonly after blood transfusion.
In 1985 medical specialists started to collect more information on this Non-A Non B Hepatitis and its relationship to blood transfusions. Therefore from 1985, the blood banks in the United States began screening donors for liver disease using a nonspecific liver enzyme test (ALT) in order to reduce the prevalence of Hepatitis C in the donor
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