NR ASDV
AU Parkin,C.
TI Irish nvCJD case diagnosed
QU PA News Fri, Jun 11, 1999
VT
The Irish Republic's first diagnosed case of variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease - reported in a Dublin hospital last month, but confirmed today - may have originated in Britain. Though medical authorities were saying little about the patient involved tonight, she was understood to be a woman who had lived in the United Kingdom for a period of years before the human version of mad cow disease was discovered during tests.
The case came to light when one of Dublin's biggest hospitals, St Vincent's, sent letters to 50 patients who had been treated by a piece of equipment used on the patient found to have contracted CJD. One of the letters was subsequently relayed to the Dublin-based Medicine Weekly newspaper. The item of equipment, a gastroscope, was later destroyed, but hospital spokesmen insisted there was no reasonable risk to any of the other 50 patients.
The unidentified woman at the centre of the case was said to have spent a number of years in Britain from the mid-1980s, which was considered a high-risk period for contracting CJD. She is now being treated at home, but the hospital authorities have not indicated her condition.
The letter to the other patients, from Nicholas Jermyn, St Vincent's Chief Executive Officer, described Variant CJD as "a very rare neurological condition". It added: "Please be assured that according to international experts on this condition, there is no measurable risk to you. "There is no known case anywhere in the world of variant CJD being transmitted by the procedure you had."
But the letter made it clear that because the rarity of the other patient's condition was such that it might be reported in the media, the hospital had been anxious that those people being contacted should not hear about it in that way. The patients involved were advised to contact their GPs to receive advice about the situation.
After reports of the case became public today, the hospital was flooded with calls from past patients. So far there has been only one case of nvCJD on the island of Ireland - a 30-year-old man who contracted the disease in Northern Ireland three years ago, and later died.
By Chris Parkin
IN Am 11. Juni 1999 wurde in der Republik Irland der erste Fall von nvCJD bei einer Frau diagnostiziert, die Mitte der 80er jahrelang im Vereinigten Königreich gelebt hatte und nun zuhause gepflegt wird. Mit einem Brief informierte der Chief Executive Officer der St Vincent's Universitätsklinik in Dublin etwa 50 andere Patienten darüber, dass sie mit einem inzwischen vernichteten Gastroskop untersucht wurden, welches zuvor auch bei dieser nvCJD-Patienin verwendet worden war.
SP englisch