'Coroners refusing vCJD test call'

Professor John Collinge, a leading expert on variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) has warned that many people could be "silently infected" with the potentially fatal condition.

The body responsible for advising ministers on the issue - the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC) - told the Government two years ago that it was important to find out how many people were carrying the infection, the BBC said.

The only reliable way of doing that, they said, would be to ask coroners to test the brain and spleen of young people during post-mortem examinations so that they could be tested for the presence of the infectious agent - known as a prion.

Prof Collinge, a member of SEAC, said systematic testing was needed to establish how many more people were likely to get the disease and whether the current measures to protect the spread of infection through blood transfusion and surgery were appropriate.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "There is a concern that what we have seen so far may be the first wave occurring in individuals who are particularly genetically susceptible but there may be more people who are silently infected in the community than the number of clinical cases we have seen would suggest."

He urged coroners to request the test when ordering post-mortem examinations. "I would hope that they would be able to help with this because I don't see any other way for us to get this information at the moment," he said.

Only 164 people have died of the disease but scientists admit there is no accurate indication of how many people may be carrying it.

Christine Lord, whose son Andy Black died of vCJD, told Today: "This is a public health issue. I, as a mum, have lost a child, a very dear, loved child, through an avoidable disease. The coroners, by actually blocking this, are actually not protecting public health. They just seem to be protecting their particular role in Government. At the end of the day, they are public servants and their job is to protect us."

A Department of Health spokesman said a pilot to obtain tissue samples from post-mortem examinations with the co-operation of some coroners will take place later this year. "It is important to obtain a better understanding of the prevalence of vCJD so that we can prevent secondary transmission from person to person," the spokesman said.