LONDON, U.K. (Reuters) – Britain announced last month what could be the world’s first case of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease being transmitted during a blood transfusion.
It is not certain whether the unidentified patient, who died earlier this year, had been infected through blood transfusion but health officials said it could not be ruled out.
The blood donor later died of vCJD.
“This is the first report from anywhere in the world of the possible transmission of vCJD from person to person via blood,” British health secretary John Reid said.
Variant CJD is the human equivalent of bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
The human form of the disease is an incurable, degenerative brain disorder linked to eating meat infected with BSE.
The recipient of the blood developed vCJD after a 61/2 year incubation period.
“It is … possible that the disease was transmitted from donor to recipient by blood transfusion,” Reid said.
