Blood transfusion and spread of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) may be transmissible by blood. To prevent secondary transmission through blood components, several countries have started to exclude as donors persons who have received a blood transfusion. We investigated the effectiveness of this measure by using a dynamic age-structured model. It is the first such model based on epidemiologic data: 1) blood donor activities, 2) a case-control study on CJD, 3) age distribution of recipients, and 4) death of recipients of blood transfusions. The model predicts that an infection like vCJD, which has been introduced into the population by the alimentary route, could not become endemic by transfusion alone and that only <1% of cases would be avoided by excluding from blood donation those persons who have received a transfusion.
Dietz
Klaus
K
University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany. klaus.dietz@uni-tuebingen.de
Raddatz
Günter
G
Wallis
Jonathan
J
Müller
Norbert
N
Zerr
Inga
I
Duerr
Hans-Peter
HP
Lefèvre
Hans
H
Seifried
Erhard
E
Löwer
Johannes
J
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001782:Blood Donors; D007562:Creutzfeldt-Jakob Syndrome / Q000635:transmission*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008875:Middle Aged; D008954:Models, Biological; D015995:Prevalence; D012307:Risk Factors; D065227:Transfusion Reaction