Rome (Fides Service ) - The Brutish Health Ministry has warned that some 6,000 patients who received blood transfusions in the UK since 1999 could be exposed to Creutzfeldt-Jakob NV, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy BSE, commonly called mad cow disease. The risk that these people may develop the disease is low however there is one precedent. In the UK a patient thought to have contracted the disease through a blood transfusion died last December.
Blood products may have been had been made from blood given by people who later died of this incurable disease.
Great Britain has exported blood products which could be contaminated to at least 11 countries: Ireland, Brazil, United Arab Emirates, India, Turkey, Brunei, Egypt, Morocco, Oman, Russia and Singapore.
In Great Britain in nine years between 141 and 143 people died of the human form of BSE. According to recent studies as many as 3,800 could develop the disease in the next few years. In the world about 150 people have died of BSE
(AP) (27/9/2004 Agenzia Fides; Righe:21; Parole:232)