Ontario Hospital Disease Scare (vCJD)

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CBC

Wed May 9, 2:44 pm

Disease scare at Ontario hospital

Patients who have had surgery at a Windsor hospital since March are being contacted after a surgeon discovered a case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Ontario health minister Tony Clement says it's being done as a precaution after the surgeon at Hotel Dieu-Grace hospital received blood tests indicating a patient may be suffering from the disease. Creutzfeldt-Jakob is similar to mad-cow disease, but experts do not consider it to be contagious in the traditional sense. However, it could be transmitted through tainted surgical instruments.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), May 09, 2001

Answers

Can oe

Mad-cow fears at Ontario hospital

TORONTO (CP) -- Patients who have had surgery at a Windsor, Ont., hospital since March are being contacted as a precaution after a surgeon discovered a possible case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Ontario's health minister says.

"A neurosurgeon at Hotel Dieu Grace hospital in Windsor received a blood test indicating that a patient who had surgery in the hospital in March of this year may be suffering from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease," Tony Clement told the legislature Wednesday.

Health Canada and the local medical officer of health have been contacted, Clement said.

"The disease is not considered by experts to be contagious in the traditional sense," the minister said.

The hospital has also suspended surgery temporarily so that operating-room instruments can undergo "a special cleaning and disinfection," he said.

There is only a "theoretical" possibility that other surgery patients could have been infected, Clement added.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob, which is similar to mad-cow disease, attacks the brain, killing cells and creating gaps in tissue. The brain takes on a sponge-like appearance.

Early symptoms include memory problems, mood changes and lack of co-ordination. The disease progresses to shakiness and dementia. Victims are eventually unable to move or speak.

Two patients died at a Colorado hospital this year from Creutzfeldt-Jakob. The disease can be contracted though tainted surgical instruments.

A separate form of the disease has been linked directly to eating meat from cattle infected with mad-cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

Nearly 100 people in Europe have died of the disease since 1995.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), May 09, 2001.


Canoe

Thursday, May 10, 2001

Mad-cow scare spreads

C-HEALTH: Mad cow disease C-HEALTH: Description of disease

By LOUISE ELLIOTT-- Canadian Press

TORONTO (CP) -- Patients at several western Ontario hospitals -- not just one -- may have been exposed to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease through shared medical instruments, Ontario's health minister warned Thursday.

Hotel Dieu Grace Hospital in Windsor, Ont. is only one of four facilities where patients may have been exposed to the disease, which attacks the brain like mad-cow disease, Tony Clement said.

The other three hospitals are Windsor Regional Hospital, the London Health Sciences Centre and St. Joseph's Health Services in London, Clement said.

"We have learned from the hospital that some medical instruments are shared with three other institutions on a routine basis," he said.

Clement told the legislature that a neurosurgeon had discovered a possible case of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease through a blood test on a patient who had surgery at Hotel Dieu in March.

Clement said an action plan to deal with the escalating scare would be held Thursday afternoon. Ministry staff were working with the four hospitals to "carry out a risk assessment of the situation as it pertains to these shared medical instruments and respond appropriately."

The Health Ministry was working with public health units and the federal government Clement said.

Hotel Dieu staff has been contacting other surgical patients who had been treated since March as a precaution.

The hospital has also suspended surgery temporarily so that operating room instruments can undergo "a special cleaning and disinfection," he said.

There is only a "theoretical" possibility that other surgery patients could have been infected, Clement said Wednesday.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob, which is similar to mad-cow disease, attacks the brain, killing cells and creating gaps in tissue. The brain takes on a sponge-like appearance.

Early symptoms include memory problems, mood changes and lack of co-ordination. The disease progresses to shakiness and dementia. Victims are eventually unable to move or speak.

Two patients died at a Colorado hospital this year from Creutzfeldt-Jakob. The disease can be contracted though tainted surgical instruments.

A separate form of the disease has been linked directly to eating meat from cattle infected with mad-cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

Nearly 100 people in Europe have died of the disease since 1995.

Disease specialists say it is not contagious in the traditional way.

Dr. Antonio Giulivi, a specialist with Health Canada,

said Wednesday,"the chances of contracting Creutzfeldt-Jakob are about one in a million."

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), May 11, 2001.


See my clarification as an answer to the other current thread on this topic here on GICC,

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=005CuW

-- Andre Weltman, M.D. (aweltman@state.pa.us), May 11, 2001.


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