AIDS expert cleared over HIV death

A court in Tokyo has cleared a retired medical expert on AIDS of professional negligence over a case in which HIV-infected blood products were administered to patients.

The former vice-president of Teikyo University Hospital, Takeshi Abe, has been on trial for allowing an unnamed haemophiliac to be treated with unheated blood products which contained the HIV virus.

The patient then developed AIDS and died ten years ago.

Dr Abe denied any malpractice.

The Japanese government -- which was accused of a cover-up and unethical links with pharmaceutical companies -- finally banned the use of unsterilised blood products in 1985.

The health ministry estimates that about fourteen-hundred people were exposed to HIV before the ban, of whom more than five-hundred have since died.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service