Washington, August 30 (ANI): After studying sheep for nine years, researchers at the University of Edinburgh have found evidence that vCJD can be transmitted through blood transfusion in humans.

The researchers say that their findings highlight the significance of precautions against vCJD transmission, such as the Government decision in 2004 to ban blood donations from anyone who had received a blood transfusion since 1980.

During the study, the researchers looked at BSE transmission between sheep through infected blood to quantify how vCJD - the human form of BSE - could be spread through transfusions.

They observed that the likelihood of BSE being transmitted between sheep through transfusion of infected sheep blood was 36 per cent, with rates of 43 per cent found for scrapie.

"It is apparent that the stage of disease incubation in infected donors played a large role in the likelihood of transmission. The longer that BSE or scrapie had been carried by donors, the greater the likelihood of the disease being transmitted with transfusions of infected blood," said lead researcher Fiona Houston, presently at the University of Glasgow.

BSE is one of a group of rare neurodegenerative disorders called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), which include scrapie and vCJD.

The researchers said that eight of the 22 sheep that received BSE infected blood showed evidence of infection, while nine out of 21 sheep receiving scrapie-infected blood developed the disease.

"The study shows that, for sheep infected with BSE or scrapie, transmission rates via blood transfusion can be high, particularly when donors are in the later stages of infection. This suggests that blood transfusion represents an efficient route of transmission for these diseases and justifies the current control measures put in place to safeguard human blood supplies," Houston said.

The study has been published in the journal Blood. (ANI)

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Melbourne, August 30 (ANI): The South Australian State Government considers the Commonwealth Games to be a "B-grade sporting event", and thus has decided not to bid for it.

Opposition Leader Martin Hamilton-Smith recently said that the Liberals would bid for the 2018 Games if they were elected in 2010.

Sport Minister Michael Wright had not rule out a bid in response to Hamilton-Smith's commitment.

However, Foley has made it clear that the Government will not bid for the event.

"This Government will not be bidding for the 2018 Commonwealth Games," news.com.au quoted Acting Premier Kevin Foley as telling an SA Great lunch.

"There is a lot better ways to spend two billion dollars than on a bunch of sporting stadiums that will offer us a B-grade sporting event, for 10 days, when Australia can beat itself in the swimming pool," he said.

"I am not going to see this state with the two billion dollars of expenditure on sporting stadiums when the most pressing need for our state is economic infrastructure, social infrastructure, to underpin a significant economic boom in this state which will put enormous pressure on housing, education, hospitals, road and rail infrastructure," he added. (ANI)

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