It was quite likely that more cases of vCJD would be diagnosed among blood donors in the Republic, the medical director of the Irish Blood Transfusion Service (IBTS), Dr William Murphy, said yesterday.
Speaking at the publication of the IBTS's annual report, he said it was known that vCJD could be transmitted through transfusions, and the blood service was therefore "in a rush" to do all it could to try to eliminate this risk.
It had begun clinical trials of a new filter system at Galway's University College Hospital in the last year, which it expected would reduce the potential for transmitting vCJD through the blood supply. But the trial had been stopped after further animal studies by its manufacturer suggested that the filter made little if any difference.
"We were desperately disappointed," he said, adding that it had been believed by the blood service that the filter system would be put in place nationwide, at an estimated cost of €10 to €14 million a year.
Dr Murphy said that another company had a filter system in development and he hoped that this would be tried by the IBTS later this year.
The precise risk of vCJD being transmitted through the blood supply in the Republic was not known, he said. But the disease probably transmitted more effectively through blood than through eating meat. "It is very difficult to get this disease by eating dead cow. Millions of people in the UK ate infected meat and there have only been 161 cases in the UK so far," he said. A young man who gave one blood donation, which was subsequently used on two patients, was treated for vCJD at a Dublin hospital last summer and has since died.
Meanwhile, Dr Murphy said he felt that new cases of hepatitis C infection, which would be linked back to the anti-D contamination scandal, would still come to light "for a very long time". However, he believed that there would be only a small number of cases.
Referring to the recent controversy regarding hepatitis C testing in the context of the new Hepatitis C Compensation Tribunal (Amendment) Bill 2006, he said that the blood bank did not rely on the Elisa test alone when testing blood donations for hepatitis C.
The Government wanted to rely on this test alone to determine who with hepatitis C would qualify for compensation. However, under sustained pressure from opposition parties and groups representing infected persons, it had relented and agreed to also use a PCR test, which tests for the virus itself.
Dr Murphy said that the Elisa test picked up almost all cases. But one could theoretically be infective before their immune system developed antibodies which would be picked up by the Elisa test. To cover this, the blood bank uses the PCR test also.
Meanwhile, the IBTS said yesterday that one of its biggest challenges was attracting new blood donors.
Maura McGrath, IBTS chairwoman, said that the issue of funding for a new Cork blood centre, estimated to cost up to €32 million, was still being discussed with the Department of Health.