Haemophiliac is first to contract vCJD from infected donor

A HAEMOPHILIAC contracted the human form of mad cow disease after being treated with a blood-clotting agent from an infected donor, experts said today.

The patient had shown no symptoms of the disease but a post-mortem examination revealed evidence of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in the spleen.

The patient, who was aged over 70 and died from an unrelated condition, is the first haemophiliac to be identified with vCJD.

Investigations are being carried out to determine how the patient contracted the disease, but he or she was treated with several batches of clotting
factors before 1999 that were sourced in Britain.

Fears over mad cow disease and its possible transmission in blood transfusions led to tighter rules in 1999 on the supply and testing of blood.

The patient had been treated with one batch of Factor VIII — a protein that helps blood clot — taken from the plasma of a donor who went on to develop symptoms of vCJD six months after
providing it in 1996.

The Health Protection Agency said today that it was working with the UK Haemophilia Centre Doctors' Organisation to inform all patients with bleeding disorders of the finding.