British vCJD case may tighten blood donor rules

ANOTHER case of a possible transmission of the human form of BSE through a blood transfusion in Britain may result in the Irish Blood Transfusion Service Board (IBTS) taking further stringent measures to minimise any infection risk.

The patient died from causes unrelated to variant CJD, but a post mortem found that the deadly rogue form of the prion protein linked to the disease in the person’s spleen.

The patient had received blood from a donor in 1999 who later developed vCJD.