Mad-cow day nears for donor blood service

By MARTIN JOHNSTON health reporter

The Blood Service is working hard to build up blood stocks ahead of the loss of a tenth of its donors next Thursday.

That is when the Ministry of Health's ruling comes into effect that the service cannot take blood from people who spent a cumulative six months or more in Britain between 1980 and 1996.

The policy change, effective from February 17, is to reduce the theoretical risk of contamination to blood supplies from Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD), the human equivalent of mad-cow disease.

The ban disqualifies about 12,000 of the Blood Service's 120,000 "active" donors - those who have donated within the past two years.

This week the service started a $1 million advertising campaign to recruit more donors. The campaign, already started in the Herald and other major newspapers, will extend to television advertising from Sunday.

The national medical director of the service, Dr Peter Flanagan, says he is confident sufficient blood supplies can be maintained, as centres are already receiving numerous calls from potential donors.

The service is installing a national computer system, which will speed up information flows on regional blood stocks.

In the "unlikely event" that regional shortages occur, the national inventory will make it easier to transfer stocks to where they are needed.

He says it is highly unlikely New Zealand will need to import any more blood products. At present only rare blood products are imported.

Dr Flanagan says 80 per cent of New Zealanders need blood products at some time in their lives.

Blood stocks are down to just over 4500 units, which is about normal for early February.

"We are not short, but we are keen to take the opportunity to build stocks up ... so we are well prepared for February 17."

About 50 cases of the more aggressive "variant" form of CJD have been reported, almost all in Britain and none in New Zealand.

Variant-CJD is linked to eating beef products contaminated with BSE - bovine spongiform encephalitis, or mad-cow disease.

The ministry says the risk of getting variant CJD is minimal and that there is no evidence the disease can be transmitted by blood.

It says the selective ban on donors is a precautionary policy.