not a good idea i guess to check into that hospital

[Guest guest]

[CJDVoice] Royal Melbourne Hospital is trying to calm the public's

fears after a patient died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or CJD

 

 

> http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2004/s1198204.htm

> Click on the link and real audio to hear the spin doctors

>

> Hospital calms fear of CJD in VictoriaPM - Monday, 13 September , 2004

> 18:41:16Reporter: Guy StaynerMARK COLVIN: Royal Melbourne Hospital is

> trying to calm the public's fears after a patient died of

> Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or CJD. Because Mad Cow Disease in humans is

> known as Variant CJD, some reports gave the wrong impression that this

> could have been such a case.

>

> The Melbourne Hospital case is not the variant form. It's not mad cow

> disease in other words, but what is worrying doctors and the public is

> that the CJD patient had undergone brain surgery.

>

> And because Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease isn't transmitted by bacteria or

> viruses, but a tiny and mysterious organism called a prion, there's no

> clear guarantee that it can't be passed on by surgical instruments.

>

> Guy Stayner reports.

>

> GUY STAYNER: Today's news that more than a thousand patients of the Royal

> Melbourne Hospital may have been unwittingly infected with

> Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, had the hospital desperately appealing for calm

> and trying to separate this strain of CJD from the strain known as Mad Cow

> Disease.

>

> The hospital's Professor Andrew Kaye.

>

> ANDREW KAYE: Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or CJD, is a very rare brain

> disease that occurs in about one in a million people. Normally it occurs

> randomly but there's genetic variation and it's fatal. There's also a

> variant CJD that's related to BSE that you would have heard about - the

> so-called mad cow disease. Now this is not it. This is nothing to do with

> it, so calm down.

>

> GUY STAYNER: While this strain of CJD is not linked to Mad Cow Disease,

> there are 1,056 hospital patients who are unlikely to heed the advice to

> remain calm. The CJD patient had surgery for a brain tumour before he'd

> displayed any symptoms of the degenerative disease and that has

> unwittingly placed subsequent patients in danger of contracting the deadly

> brain infection.

>

> The disease stems from prion proteins, and unlike microbes, they are

> resistant to ordinary forms of sterilisation, leaving open the possibility

> that patients operated on with the same surgical equipment used on the CJD

> patient could also have contracted the disease.

>

> Neurosurgeon Steve Davis.

>

> STEVE DAVIS: There have been a few cases in the 1970s of possible or

> probable transmission through neurosurgical instruments, but there has

> been no case of transmission through neurosurgical instruments in the last

> 30 years, so that the risks are exceedingly remote.

>

> GUY STAYNER: The Victorian Health Minister, Bronwyn Pike, is also

> appealing for calm.

>

> BRONWYN PIKE: It's extremely remote that anyone could possibly contract

> this disease from surgical instruments that have been used in brain

> surgery. There hasn't been one substantiated case in the whole world in

> the last 20 years.

>

> GUY STAYNER: The Royal Melbourne Hospital says there has been no breach of

> protocol or procedures but is now working to prevent a repeat of the

> problem.

>

> Professor Andrew Kaye once more.

>

> ANDREW KAYE: We have today written to 1,056 patients inviting them to

> contact us, or asking them to contact us, and have withdrawn some of our

> neurosurgical instruments, and begun long cycle sterilising of our entire

> stock of 300,000 surgical instruments on advice of the National CJD

> Incident Reference Group.

>

> MARK COLVIN: That report from Guy Stayner.

>