VIENNA (AP) — An Austrian commission says hundreds of people, including orphans in a psychiatric hospital, might have been deliberately infected with malaria to treat other patients with syphilis by doctors using a medical therapy once thought to be effective.

The commission started work last year following accusations by former patients who were orphaned children on a psychiatric and neurological ward run by the city of Vienna. Lawyer Johannes Oehlboeck, who represents some of them, said in late 2012 that several claim to have been used as “carriers” for the malaria parasite to keep it alive until they could be injected into syphilis patients.