Blood transfusion linked to mad cow disease death
First UK case of variant CJD from
blood.
22 December 2003
NICOLA JONES
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| Blood donation:
screening measures may need rethink. |
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A patient who died from the human form of mad cow disease
may have caught the illness from a blood transfusion.
Policies governing blood donation may require a rethink
as a result.
It is not possible to tell whether the patient caught
the fatal disease - called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease (vCJD) - from the transfusion or contracted
it by eating infected meat. But the incident is the
first case of "possible transmission" through transfusion
- something that scientists have long known to be a
possibility.
Britain's Department of Health and the National Blood
Service have since contacted 15 other patients who also
received blood from donors who later died from vCJD.
The patients have been offered counselling.
There is no blood test for vCJD, so blood banks cannot
check their stocks for signs of the disease. But precautions
are in place to minimize the risk of transmission. US
and Canadian blood banks refuse donations from British
citizens or those who have spent a significant amount
of time in the country. In Britain itself, transfusions
are stripped of white blood cells, which are thought
to aid disease transmission.
The donor in this case gave blood in 1996, before the
precautions were put in place. He fell ill and died
in 1999; the recipient of his blood died in autumn this
year.
"There won't be any changes to these procedures or
precautions," says National Blood Service spokesperson
Jude Pamington. But an advisory committee is discussing
whether recipients of transfusions should be allowed
to donate blood. If they are excluded, the number of
blood donors could drop by up to 15%.
Five of the 15 patients who received contaminated blood
were given the transfusions after the white blood cells
had been removed. The other ten received them before
the precaution was implemented.
Scientists think that the incubation period of vCJD
may be as long as 30 years, so it is impossible to determine
whether other past blood donors will yet contract vCJD.
Britain's health secretary John Reid told the parliament
there could be other ways to reduce transmission risk.
"It is apparent that much more blood and blood products
are used clinically than need to be used," he said.
Reid said he would ask the National Blood Service to
have urgent discussions with the National Health Service
to explore how blood supplies can be used more efficiently.
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