THE World Health Organisation, has declared that the human form of mad cow disease, Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (CJD) a fatal brain disorder, can be passed on by blood transfusions and that certain groups of people at risk must not donate blood.
The findings were presented to the UN health agency by a leading," US scientist who identified three high risk donor categories after his experiments with mice showed blood plasma could transmit the disease agent.
The WHO endorsed the findings yesterday after a two day consultation with a group of 50 international medical experts on CJD and bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), which causes mad cow disease.
The experts recommendations will be sent to the 191 member states of WHO, which is co ordinating world wide surveillance amid fears that mad cow disease can cross over to humans in a new form of the brain wasting CJD.
Mr Paul Brown, a leading expert on both CJD and BSE based at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, said he injected blood from mice infected with the human form of mad cow disease into the brains of, healthy mice, which became ill. He added the risk of blood plasma passing on CJD was small, but existed.
The high risk groups which he said should not be allowed donate blood were people who received growth hormones in the early 1980s; people who received a transplant of a human brain tissue called dura mater; members of families affected with the disease or families bearing known mutations that could cause CJD.