It was announced this week that a new blood based test for the detection of variant CJD has been developed by a group in London, UK. The assay had a sensitivity of 71.4% and a specificity of 100%. The only positive samples detected were from patients with variant CJD. This assay is not currently available outside this group’s research setting and no persons with haemophilia and who are in the at risk group for variant CJD have been tested. The abstract of the scientific paper describing the test can be found here

A paper describing the EUHASS program has been published. The manuscript can be downloaded from here

List Content goes here

Amorfix Life Sciences Ltd has announced that it has decided to suspend all development of their vCJD diagnostic test. Amorfix was considered to have been the leader in the race to develop a blood test to diagnose vCJD. Following the failure of their test to identify the plasma from a UK vCJD patient as positive the company has decided to abandon work on this test. Further information