Germans on trial in HIV scandal

Managers and scientists from a German pharmaceutical firm shut down over an Aids scandal have been charged with failing to protect their blood products from infection, prosecutors said yesterday, Reuter reports from Bonn.

A Koblenz prosecutor, Norbert Weise, said two managers and three scientists from the firm UB Plasma GmbH are accused of failing to check blood supplies for the HIV virus, which causes Aids, in order to cut costs. They were charged with grievious bodily injury over three cases where hospital patients were known to have been infected with HIV. If found guilty they could be imprisoned for up to 10 years.