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Jan B. Wade · #1 (**permalink**) 03-16-2004, 02:17 PM

Britain to Restrict Some Blood Donations
1 hour, 29 minutes ago Add Health - AP

By ED JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

LONDON - The British government said Tuesday it would ban blood
donations
from anyone who had received a transfusion since 1980, as a precaution
against transferring the human form of mad cow disease.

Reuters

Health Secretary John Reid said anyone who had received a blood
transfusion in the United Kingdom after Jan. 1, 1980 would not be
allowed
to donate.

Reid said the risk of transferring the fatal brain wasting illness was
uncertain, but said the government was taking the measure, which will
come
into force on April 5, "as a precaution."

He told the House of Commons that it was "generally accepted" that
people
in the United Kingdom had not been exposed to bovine spongiform
encephalopathy, also known as BSE (news - web sites) or mad cow
disease,
before 1980.

"I would emphasize again that this action is being taken because of an
uncertain but slight risk," Reid added.

The government announced in December last year the first reported case
of
a person dying from the human form of the disease after a blood
transfusion from an infected donor.

Reid said it was still not possible to determine whether the
transfusion
recipient contracted the illness, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
(news
- web sites), from the donor or whether the two were independently
infected.

But he said the government had accepted the advice of the chief medical
officer.

There is no blood test to screen for variant CJD, but precautions in
Britain and abroad have been in place since 1997.

Since 1997, the National Blood Service donor records are checked every
time a new case of variant CJD has been identified and if the victim
has
given blood, all stocks from that donor are destroyed.

Later in 1998, the government announced it would phase out the use of
British plasma in the manufacture of blood products. Since 1999, all
blood
products have been made using plasma imported from the United States,
where there have been no reported cases of human mad cow disease.

Several countries have banned blood donations from anyone who has
visited
or lived in Britain for six months or more during the most dangerous
period - between 1980 and 1996. They are Australia, Austria, Canada,
Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Japan, New Zealand,
Switzerland and the United States.

Scientists believe variant CJD comes from eating products from cows
infected with BSE.

More than 150 people have died from variant CJD, most in Britain.

In the case announced last December, the donor had shown no signs of
variant CJD when giving blood in March 1996.

Soon afterward, the blood was given to the recipient during an
operation
for a serious illness. The donor developed the disease three years
later,
in 1999, and died. The recipient of the blood transfusion died in
autumn
last year and a post mortem confirmed variant CJD.