- LONDON (AFP) -- Britain has
reportedly exported to "at least 11 countries" blood products
at risk of contamination with the prion responsible for variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob
Disease (vCJD), the human form of mad cow disease.
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- The blood plasma products resulted from donations by
nine people who later died of the incurable disease, The Times said today.
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- The countries involved were named as Singapore (three
samples sent), Russia (23), Oman (100), Morocco (100), Egypt (144), the
sultanate of Brunei (400), Turkey (840), India (953), Dubai (2400), Brazil
(44,864) and Ireland (83,500).
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- Five of those countries had been warned by Britain's
sanitary services, The Times said, but the daily did not know which.
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- Last week letters went out to 6000 patients in Britain,
most of them haemophiliacs, who may have been exposed to vCJD through blood
plasma products.
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- According to health ministry figures, 141 people are
known to have died in Britain from vCJD, a spongy deterioration of the
brain causing personality change, loss of body function, and eventually
death.
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- Cases of the disease peaked in 2000, when 28 deaths were
reported. Since then the trend has been generally downward, with 17 cases
in 2002 and 18 last year.
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- In May, government-funded scientists estimated 3800 people
in Britain could be harbouring the human form of mad cow disease without
knowing it.
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- Copyright 2004 Nationwide News http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1274&storyid=1999068
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