UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak apologized for the infected blood scandal on behalf of successive governments on Monday and declared it was a "day of national shame."

Addressing the House of Commons following the publication of the inquiry, Sunak said, "I want to make a whole-hearted and unequivocal apology for this terrible injustice."

He also promised to pay "comprehensive compensation" to those infected and those affected by the scandal. "Whatever it costs to deliver this scheme, we will pay it," he said, adding that details will be set out on Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, a damning 2,527-page inquiry concluded that the contaminated blood scandal in the UK, which has caused more than 3,000 deaths, "could largely, though not entirely, have been avoided."

The report said that "a catalog of failures" by successive governments and doctors caused the "calamity," in which tens of thousands of patients with hemophilia and other bleeding disorders were infected with HIV and hepatitis viruses after receiving infected blood and blood products between the 1970s and early 1990s.

"It may also be surprising that the questions why so many deaths and infections occurred have not had answers before now," the report said.

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UK inquiry: Infected blood scandal could and should have been avoided 

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