British scientists confirm that variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), which is a fatal human form of BSE or “mad cow” disease, can be transmitted by blood transfusions.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh conducted a nine-year study of BSE transmission among sheep by means of infected blood in an effort to determine whether infected blood could also transmit vCJD among humans. In sheep, they concluded that the rate of transmission by blood is 36 percent for BSE, and 43 percent for scrapie, which is related to BSE. The researchers also concluded that the longer the blood donor had been infected, the more likely the disease was to be transmitted.
In regard to the study’s relevance to the human blood supply, study leader Fiona Houston said, “While it may not correlate directly to what happens in the human population, due to factors such as species differences in genetic susceptibility to disease, it provides greater insight into the role of how vCJD may be carried through infected blood.”
Variant CJD was first recognized in 1996, and tends to strike the young, with the median age at death being 28, while the median age at death of classic CJD victims is 68. In the United Kingdom, 167 cases of vCJD have been reported, and three of the cases are believed to have been caused by infected blood. In the United States, three cases of vCJD have been reported, and it is believed two of the people were infected in the United Kingdom and one in Saudi Arabia.
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