Panic spread across Europe in October and November, after it was disclosed that a German company distributed AIDS-infected blood to hospitals across the continent.
There were charges that officials of the company, UB Plasma, knowingly distributed the tainted blood.
Germany's health minister, Horst Seehofer, said he knew of 373 cases in which patients were given tainted blood. He suggested everyone who had major surgery since 1982, 15 million people, should be tested for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
