It must now be assumed that vCJD can be transmitted by blood transfusion, the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, said last night.
His comments came after it was announced in the UK that a 69-year-old man who died this month from vCJD had probably picked it up from a blood transfusion. This makes him the first person in the world to have possibly caught the disease via a blood transfusion.
Mr Martin said the national CJD advisory group will meet today to discuss what further measures may be needed to protect the safety of the Irish blood supply.
There is no test available to screen blood for vCJD, and the medical director of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS), Dr Willie Murphy, indicated no practical test was even in development.
There has been only one case of vCJD in the State. That was in a woman who had lived in the UK.
Mr Martin indicated his Department was informed yesterday, shortly before the British Health Secretary, Mr John Reid, made a statement in the Commons that it was likely the latest person to die from vCJD in the UK had contracted the disease from a blood transfusion he had during an operation in 1997.
"On the basis of this information we now must assume that vCJD can be transmitted by blood transfusion. Up until now such an event has been considered possible, but unlikely," said Mr Martin.
He added that since the possibility of a transmission by transfusion first emerged, the IBTS had taken a number of precautionary steps to protect the blood supply. These included the removal of most of the white cells from blood (these are considered by experts to be potential sources of infection), the banning from giving blood of people who had spent five years or more in the UK between 1980 and 1996, the exclusion of people who have previously received blood transfusions in the UK from donating in this country, the importation of plasma products from BSE-free areas to further decrease the risk of transmission, and the issuing of guidance to doctors setting out best practice for blood use when operating on patients.
At a briefing in the Department of Health, Dr Murphy said he believed the risk of anyone contracting vCJD from a blood transfusion here was extremely small.
He said, however, the blood bank would look again at whether more people who lived in the UK at the height of the BSE epidemic should be banned from donating blood. Any extension of the ban would reduce some of the residual risk but could lead to serious shortages of blood. There had to be a balancing of risks as a shortage of blood could pose a risk to patients.
He said people undergoing elective surgery should not be given blood unless absolutely necessary. A lot of patients going for surgery were anaemic, and if that was tackled before surgery it would reduce the likelihood of them needing blood.
Dr Murphy said research in the Republic indicated the likelihood of further cases of vCJD here from dietary sources - eating BSE-infected meat - may be as low as one or two. The predominant risk comes from eating infected meat."So the risk that somebody who is donating blood is currently incubating vCJD and may pass it on through a blood transfusion is extremely small."
The incubation period is about 10 years.