By James Matthews, Scotland Correspondent
A public inquiry into why thousands of people were infected by contaminated blood donations has found warnings were ignored by the NHS, Sky News has learned.
The report, by Lord Penrose, also criticises a medical team in Edinburgh for failing to inform patients they were HIV positive until several years after diagnosis.
The judge is publishing his findings today, following a public inquiry into the scandal.
It was ordered by the Scottish Government and has looked at around 480 Scottish cases.
There has been no equivalent inquiry south of the border, although campaigners hope the Scottish process will help the fight for compensation of around 7,000 victims across the UK.
Sky News understands that following publication of the Penrose inquiry report, the Scottish Government will issue an apology to those affected.
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The victims are mostly haemophiliacs who were infected by HIV and hepatitis C after being given contaminated blood or blood products in the 1970s and 80s.
Haemophiliacs need an agent to help clot their blood, but 30 years ago, many were given clotting agents from infected blood.
Donations had come made from a variety of risk groups, including prisoners in American jails who had given blood for money which was was then sold on to the NHS in Britain.
Lord Penrose has established that a series of warnings were ignored by the NHS.
After Britain's first case of AIDS in Cardiff in the early 80s, a senior public official called for the Department of Health to ban US imports of the clotting agent, Factor 8, because of the risk of infection.
Haemophilia campaign groups believe that if the warnings had been heeded, a "disaster" could have been averted.
Bill Wright, Chair of Haemophilia Scotland, told Sky News: "For far too many people, there are too many unanswered questions with this whole disaster. One of the things that I think people generally feel that they want to see is the truth, whatever that is."
"Whether that is achievable remains to be seen, frankly, because far too many people have died, far too many medical records have gone missing, there are one or two key official documents that have gone missing, and some of the key expert witnesses are no longer with us either."
Lord Penrose is critical of an NHS haemophilia unit in Edinburgh for not telling patients they were infected with HIV.
One of them, Robert Mackie, became HIV positive in 1984 but wasn't informed by medical staff until 1987.
Fortunately, he did not pass the virus on to his wife, family or anyone else.
Mr Mackie told Sky News: "It's unacceptable. I could have infected my wife, I could have infected family, I could have infected friends.
"Fortunately for the world community, I was not promiscuous. The risks were horrendous."
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