BRITIAN: A British hospital was tracing 24 people yesterday who may have been exposed to the deadly CJD brain disease - and warned a similar alert could occur in other hospitals.
The patients all underwent operations using instruments which had been used on a person who had a brain operation in July. That patient was diagnosed a month later with sporadic CJD, a rare but fatal brain-wasting condition.
A hospital spokesman said the 24 were at a "very, very low" theoretical risk.
Earlier, the Department of Health was quoted as saying that an "appalling incident" had taken place at the Middlesborough General Hospital in northern England. The hospital's medical director defended its handling of the affair.
"We have to take advice given to us about this very rare condition from the NHS authorities, and we appear to have followed the rules precisely," Dr Paul Lawler said.
"It is a terrible incident. Nevertheless, it could still happen tomorrow in this hospital or indeed in any other hospital," he added. "With a patient who was not suspected of having CJD, we would do exactly the same thing - as indeed would any other hospital in the UK," he told BBC television.
Mr Lawler said the 24 may have been exposed to a form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, known as "sporadic CJD".
Only about one in a million people contract sporadic CJD.Unlike the variant CJD strain - the human form of "mad cow disease" which scientists suspect is contacted by eating beef contaminated with BSE - sporadic CJD occurs randomly, usually in older people. British hospital guidelines specify that equipment used in operations in any suspected CJD cases should be quarantined. - (Reuters)