UAE | Health
Patients 'not at risk' of catching mad cow disease
Patients are not at risk of contracting the human form of mad cow disease from contaminated blood sold to the UAE, a health official said yesterday.
- By Charles Stratford, Staff Reporter
- Published: 00:00 May 21, 2006
Abu Dhabi: Patients are not at risk of contracting the human form of mad cow disease from contaminated blood sold to the UAE, a health official said yesterday.
A report in the London-based Guardian newspaper earlier this month said the British government had been forced to warn 14 countries, including the UAE, that patients were in danger of developing the incurable variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (vCJD) because of contaminated British blood it had exported.
Reacting to the report, Dr Ameen Bin Hussain Al Amiri, Director of the Department of Blood Transfusion and Research Services (DBTRS), told Gulf News an investigation had shown the UAE had never imported any infected products.
"This is an old story. After an extensive examination we found the UAE had not imported any of the blood products the British government said they sold us."
According to documents released under the UK's Freedom of Information Act, the British Government unknowingly exported contaminated blood products to treat conditions such as haemophilia in the 1990s.
The paper says that while it is too early to know if any foreign patients may develop the disease because it takes years to appear, scientists are now worried about a "second wave" of casualties not yet displaying symptoms but who may have been infected through blood transfusions.
Some 28 people outside the UK have already developed vCJD by eating British meat infected with Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the fatal neurodegenerative disease in cattle, commonly known as mad cow disease.
"The reports said the UAE imported a number of human plasma products that could be infected with vCJD. The reports were wrong. We don't have these types of products in the UAE and we never imported them from the UK," said Dr Al Amiri.
According to the report, the risk of contracting the disease through a blood transfusion was only considered theoretical until December 2003. But UK health authorities were forced to re-examine blood products sent abroad when it emerged three people in the UK had become infected this way.
CONCERNS
'Precautions may still need to be taken'
Following what the document describes as a "rethink" the UK's Health Protection Agency decided that while patients in Brazil and Turkey "are most at risk", the UAE, Brunei, India, Jordan, Oman and Singapore "might need to take precautions".
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or mad cow disease is a progressive neurological disorder of cattle that results from infection by an unconventional transmissible agent. It develops as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease in human beings if they consume contaminated meat.
Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) is also a rare and fatal human neurodegenerative condition.
Like CJD, vCJD is classified as a Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathy (TSE) because of characteristic spongy degeneration of the brain and its ability to be transmitted.
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