In the framework of the EU Initiative on Health Security, ECDC and the EU Member States set up an ‘Exchange of Experts’ programme aiming to provide experts from European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) partner countries with opportunities to learn from the experiences of EU Member States within specific disease areas, and in turn, share their own experiences.
Since the risk assessment published by ECDC in August 2021 on the risk of vCJD disease transmission via blood and PDMP manufactured from donations obtained in the UK, no new cases of vCJD associated with dietary exposure or transfusion of blood or blood components have been reported in EU/EEA or in the rest of the world.
ECDC assessed the risk to the EU/EEA of the presence and the possible transmission of prions, which have been linked to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, by blood and plasma-derived medicinal products (PDMPs) manufactured from donations obtained in the UK.
This document provides laboratories with a single protocol for producing recombinant full-length hamster prion protein and using it to perform the Real-Time Quaking-Induced Conversion assay (RT-QuIC), which can distinguish sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD) from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD).
No cases of variant Creutzfeldt−Jakob disease (vCJD) were identified in the EU/EEA in 2017. The disease remains extremely rare. This is consistent with the current understanding of the underlying epidemiology of vCJD and with the positive impact of risk mitigation measures introduced in the EU in the late 1980s to remove potential infectious animal material from the human food chain.
Two cases of variant Creutzfeldt−Jakob disease (vCJD) were identified in the EU/EEA in 2016: one probable case from Italy and one confirmed case from the UK.