Government confirms second case of vCJD transmitted by blood transfusion

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7460.251-a

BMJ 2004;329:251 (31 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7460.251-a

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Government confirms second case of vCJD transmitted by blood transfusion

London Stephen Pincock

A second case in the United Kingdom of variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease (vCJD) that may have been transmitted through a blood transfusion has been been confirmed by the National CJD Surveillance Unit, the Department of Health has said.

The case involved a patient who had a blood transfusion in 1999 from a donor who later went on to develop vCJD. The patient died of causes unrelated to vCJD, but a post mortem examination showed the presence of disease causing prion proteins in the patient�s spleen.

"After the first person to person transmission of vCJD was indentified it was expected that further cases may follow," the health department said in a statement. "This second case is of particular scientific interest as the patient had a different genetic type to that so far found in patients who have developed vCJD."

Few details of this second case were available, but . . . [Full text of this article]

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