China's HIV timebomb

50,000 - Chinese estimates 600,000 - WHO estimates 10 million - WHO projection for 2010

The case has potential repercussions for many thousands of other Chinese Aids sufferers who have become infected from contaminated blood or medical equipment.

The court in eastern China's Jiangsu province ordered the hospital that carried out the blood transfusion to pay the compensation to the husband and young daughter of the woman who died.

The woman had been given a transfusion at the hospital three years ago during a difficult childbirth. She died late last year.

Her husband and baby daughter have also tested positive for HIV.

This is thought to be the first time a Chinese court has awarded such a large amount to a victim of HIV-tainted blood.

A flood of similar cases could now follow.

Blood trade

HIV contamination is believed to be widespread in China's poorly funded and unhygienic blood collection system.

Thousands have been infected with HIV through selling blood

More than half a million people in the central Chinese province of Henan are thought to have become infected by selling their blood to commercial blood dealers during the 1990s.

Victims have described how their blood was pooled into a single container while the plasma was drawn off and the remaining mixture of blood from several different people then pumped back into their veins.

This case may have struck a blow for the victims of such criminal negligence, but it's still highly doubtful whether the victims will actually see the money.

Rather than pay a lump sum, the court ordered the hospital to pay annual instalments of around $20,000, but even that might be too much.

Hospitals in China are chronically under-funded and in the past declared themselves bankrupt rather than pay compensation.