The death from vCJD of an individual in the UK who had previously received a blood transfusion from a donor who went on to have vCJD was announced on December 17, 2003. Robert Will from the National CJD Surveillance Unit, Edinburgh, UK and colleagues outline the process which links individuals from the UK CJD register with data from the national blood-donor database to identify the number of blood donors who went on to develop vCJD and to compare vCJD incidence between donors and recipients. 48 individuals were identified as having received a blood component from 15 donors who later became vCJD cases. One of these recipients (the case whose death was reported last December) developed symptoms of vCJD 6.5 years after receiving a transfusion of red cells donated by an individual 3.5 years before the donor developed symptoms of vCJD.

Robert Will comments: "Our findings raise the possibility that this infection was transfusion transmitted. Infection in the recipient could have been due to past dietary exposure to the BSE agent. However, the age of the patient was well beyond that of most vCJD cases, and the chance of observing a case of vCJD in a recipient in the absence of transfusion transmitted infection is about 1 in 15 000 to 1 in 30 000."

A second study in this week's issue compared the degree of tissue infectivity (using the misfolded prion protein as a marker) among macaques (monkeys native to south and southeast Asia) who were given tissue containing the BSE agent orally or intravenously. Corinne Lasmzas and colleagues from the Department of Medical Research of the French Atomic Energy Commission found that the degree of organ infectivity was similar regardless of the route of entry of the prion protein. Tonsi
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Contact: Joe Santangelo
j.santangelo@elsevier.com
212-633-3810
Lancet
5-Feb-2004