Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease transmitted by blood

If the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is transmitted by blood possibly?

13/12/2013

Mid-90s, there was an increased coverage of the mostly fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (English Creutzfeldt-Jakob DiseaseCJD). At that time a new variant was discovered in Great Britain. This is considered a human counterpart to „Mad Cow Disease "(BSE) According to experts, patients were most likely to be infected by foods containing BSE agents.

This very rare but always fatal brain disease is characterized by a rapid decay of mental and physical abilities. At the beginning of the disease are usually psychic abnormalities such as depressive moods, anxiety, delusions and hallucinations, which leads in the course to strong movement disorders and dementia.

Currently, scientists from Germany, France and Spain have probably demonstrated that CJD can be transmitted via blood and blood products and pathogens in the blood must be present. For this, the researchers have given samples of CJD patients to mice and it was revealed that the disease was passed on to the animals. This suggests that, at least in theory, infection by humans is possible through blood, as shown in the summary of the study in the journal „Emerging Infectious Diseases“ evident.

„So far, none of the epidemiological studies has been able to prove a link. However, one must now take the findings seriously and clarify exactly where and when the infectiousness in the blood occurs“, explains the neurologist Inga Zerr from Göttingen involved in the research. In the past, the pathogen could not be detected in the blood. Only transmissions from contaminated surgical instruments or growth hormones produced from human brain glands could be identified as potential transmission pathways.

The cause of the disease is pathologically altered prions, which are protein structures that, for reasons that are still unclear, lead to a sponge-like dissolution of the brain. According to the National Reference Center, around 100 to 120 new cases of the so-called sporadic variant occur annually in Germany. Further investigations should clarify, if blood transmission is limited to mice only. (Fr)