In reply: We thank Hodgson for sharing his concerns, affording us the opportunity to reassure the medical and non-medical communities about the utility of recently revised infection control guidelines for Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD).1 We reiterate that sporadic CJD is already endemic in Australia, necessitating guidelines that are regularly updated to ensure relevant scientific developments are incorporated, and that variant CJD (a zoonosis related to “mad cow” disease) has not occurred in this country.
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- 1. Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease infection control guidelines. Canberra: DoHA, 2013. http://www.health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/content/icg-guidelines-index.htm (accessed Aug 2013).
- 2. World Health Organization. WHO tables on tissue infectivity distribution in transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. Geneva: WHO, 2010. http://www.who.int/bloodproducts/tablestissueinfectivity.pdf (accessed Aug 2013).
- 3. Collins S, Law M, Fletcher A, et al. Surgical treatment and risk of sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease: a case control study. Lancet 1999; 353: 693-697.
- 4. Mahillo-Fernandez I, de Pedro-Cuesta J, Bleda MJ, et al. Surgery and risk of sporadic Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease in Denmark and Sweden: registry-based case–control studies. Neuroepidemiology 2008; 31: 229-240.
- 5. Bernoulli C, Siegfried J, Baumgartner G, et al. Danger of accidental person-to-person transmission of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease by surgery. Lancet 1977; 1: 478-479.
- 6. Taguchi F, Tamai Y, Uchida K, et al. Proposal for a procedure for complete inactivation of the Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease agent. Arch Virol 1991; 119: 297-301.
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