CAIRO: Minister of Health Hatem Al-Gabaly testified in favor of medical supplies company Hidelina in a court case charging the company with distributing defective blood bags to public hospitals. The minister told the court Tuesday that until now, there have been no reported cases of infection or death caused by infected blood bags. Al-Gabaly made similar statements in a press conference held earlier this year following media reports about the defective bags. The Health Minister only answered 11 of the 25 questions posed by the defense, with the court overruling the 14 remaining questions. He refused to answer a question about his personal opinion on the integrity and ethics of health ministry officials who approved the usage of the blood bags in question. He said that the administrative monitoring unit is the one that should be asked about these officials - who are defendants in the case. Hidelina was accused of producing 200,000 contaminated blood bags infected with bacteria and fungi likely to cause cancer and hepatitis. The ongoing case has made headlines all year long. The case stirred even more controversy because the owner, Hany Surur, is a member of Parliament. According to Al-Masry Al-Youm, Al-Gabaly also refused to answer questions regarding the industry and health affairs' committee reports, which stated that the ministry had accepted 36,000 bags from Hidelina with no indication of infections. Moreover, Al-Gabaly brushed off questions on the concerns raised by the investigations committee in the People's Assembly. The investigations conducted earlier by the general prosecutor revealed severe negligence in some departments of the Ministry of Health, notably the blood unit, the pharmaceutical department, and the National Center for Monitoring and Medical Research and public hospitals, which all come under the jurisdiction of the ministry. The investigations proved that there were violations in the license given to Surur's company to produce the blood bags. Previous experience in the field was required, but the company was given the green light without fulfilling this provision. Officials at the Ministry of Trade and Industry, who were also questioned during the investigation, said that the company had committed 18 industrial violations of Egyptian and international standards for manufacturing blood bags. Last June, the public prosecutor announced that investigations had found 16 Ministry of Health officials, who were initially arrested for suspected involvement in the case, innocent. Their names were removed from the list of those prohibited from leaving the country. When the news of the contaminated blood bags broke last January, Al-Gabaly told the Shoura Council that corruption will not be tolerated. Surur, his sister and five other suspects are currently in prison. Ministry of Health employee Soheir El Sharkawi was the first to bring the case to the public's attention. She claimed to have found 200,000 defective bags used to package donated blood in the ministry's storage.
