24 patients 'exposed to CJD'

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A total of 24 hospital patients may have been exposed to the human form of mad cow disease in what the Department of Health has described as an "appalling incident."

They face an agonising wait to discover whether they have developed Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, a condition which gradually robs sufferers of the ability to move, speak and think before eventually leading to their death.

Despite the Department of Health's damning indictment the hospital involved insists that the risk of any of the patients contracting the disease is "extremely low." The patients all had operations in which equipment was re-used after it had been employed for a biopsy on a suspected CJD sufferer at Middlesbrough General Hospital in July.

In the biopsy, a small piece of a patient's brain was cut out for tests which eventually established that he had the disease.

But surgical instruments have to be discarded after being used on suspected CJD carriers because traces of the protein which causes it can remain on them even after sterilisation.

South Tees NHS Trust, which runs the hospital, confirmed that a case of sporadic CJD had been diagnosed and that surgical instruments used to treat that patient had been re- used. A spokeswoman said the instruments were used over a three-week period.

The hospital said: "The discovery was made after the patient had a brain operation on 19 July and the diagnosis was confirmed on 8 August. We immediately spoke to the patient and their relatives to inform them of the distressing news.

"Twenty-four patients were operated on with the same equipment but it was withdrawn, as a precaution, as soon as the diagnosis was confirmed. The Trust immediately made inquiries with the health authority-public health department and the Department of Health's CJD surveillance unit.

"Since then we have been working closely with the CJD surveillance unit to look at any possible risk to these patients, though it must be stressed it is extremely low."

Sporadic CJD, although potentially deadly, is not linked to eating beef from a BSE-infected animal. It accounts for around 85 per cent of all cases of the illness and can have an incubation period of

up to 20 years. Sporadic CJD tends to affect older people but it is not known what causes it. It occurs in people who have no family history of the disease and strikes for no apparent reason.

The Government admitted earlier this year that millions of Britons could have been exposed to the risk of CJD from eating low-cost beef. There have been more than 110 cases of vCJD - which is linked to eating beef from BSE-infected cattle - since 1996. At least 100 people have died, including 15-year-old Claire McVey, who became the youngest victim in January 2000.

 

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