Welsh CJD alert after two years of exposure

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDMar 29 2011

Thirty-eight people have been told they may have been put at risk of contracting the fatal brain disease Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) following surgery. All the patients were operated on between 2007 and 2009 at either Swansea's Morriston or Singleton hospital, Neath Port Talbot or Princess of Wales Hospital in Bridgend.

This came into light after a patient who was operated on was later discovered to be at high risk of CJD. Health chiefs have admitted they waited two years to contact 38 patients who are at risk of contracting CJD after surgery. Officials at Abertawe Bro Morganwg University Health Board (ABMU) discovered a patient was at "high risk" of developing the incurable brain condition in 2009 after surgery in 2007.

An investigation checked upon the instruments used in the operation which were later deployed in a series of other surgical procedures, with doctors saying it was possible proteins which cause CJD were not killed by being sterilized. It was in February this year that the panel said the health board should contact the 38 patients involved. Of the 38 people who are at “low risk” - 37 were from Mid and West Wales and one was from North Wales.

Public Health Wales (PHW) assured that those affected were at “extremely low risk”, but confirmed it had only posted letters to them last Saturday, after it conducted an internal investigation. Jorg Hoffman, consultant in communicable disease control, said there had only been six cases worldwide of any form of CJD being transmitted via surgery. “In this incident we do not have a single confirmed case of CJD. However, we do have one patient who was at high risk and 38 people at extremely low risk. We know all the surgical instruments used on this group of patients were cleaned, disinfected and sterilised normally. However, it is possible that the proteins which cause CJD, known as prions, survived these routine sterilization procedures so an extremely small risk of transmission remains,” he said.

Guidance by the CJD panel says anyone with a risk of more than 1% of being exposed must be told. Hoffman declined to say whether the 38 had donated blood since the operations, but confirmed Public Health Wales had contacted the Welsh Blood Service.