§ Mr. George RobertsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) how many people have died each year in Scotland from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease over the past five years;
(2) if he will list the dates and locations of each death in Scotland from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease over the past five years and the respective dates on which the Department of Health's Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease surveillance units were first notified of each suspected case; and in any case where notification was not provided before death, if he will explain why notification was not provided earlier;
(3) what is his Department's procedure for notifying health authorities of suspected cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
§ Mr. Lang[holding answer 7 March 1994]: The number of people in Scotland who have died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in each of the past five years is as follows:
Definite Probable Possible 1989 5 — — 1990 3 — — 1991 5 — — 1992 4 — — 1993 5 2 2 The location of deaths from CJD, both definite and probable, for the period 1 May 1990 to 30 April 1993 is given in figure 1 of the second annual report of the CJD surveillance unit. Of the cases notifed to the CJD surveillance unit before death, this occurred on average 61 days before death. However, in five cases diagnosis was made at post mortem by the CJD surveillance unit's dedicated pathology laboratory. This is an important source of data for the unit as there is no diagnostic test for CJD in life.
There is no departmental procedure for notifying health boards of suspected cases of CJD, since the information would already be known to the clinician involved in the case. Information on suspected cases is available from the unit's annual report, a copy of which is available in the Library.