Tissue trade linked to death?

2002-07-24 08:31

Annelie Muller

Uitenhage - International trade in human tissue, which has claimed several victims around the world, could possibly be linked to the death of 27-year-old Jan Stokes, who died on Tuesday after a long illness - at one stage believed to be mad cow disease.

While Stokes was fighting for his life in the Cuyler Clinic in Uitenhage, a gruesome tale of trade in human tissue - of which he might have been a victim - started unfolding.

Dr Marcelle Britz, a neurologist who had treated Stokes, said he was administered a Lyodura tissue dressing infected with Creutzfeld-Jacob disease (CJD) following minor brain surgery in South Africa.

Britz declined to disclose where Stokes had undergone the surgery, but a record of the tissue used in the operation could be traced back to the contaminated Lyodura tissue.

Brains taken from cadavers

Kent Foster, spokesperson of the Canadian health department, in a report on a series on the Lyodura tissue plaster on Canadian television said the product was developed by a German company B Braun & Melsungen AG in 1969. They used the dura mater or tough outer membrane of brains taken from cadavers.

The research, broadcast in a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) programme in March this year, was met with outrage.

The CBC documentary stated that Lyodura was distributed in Canadian hospitals in the early 1970s and that the Japanese government started importing the product in 1973.

The report also said 114 people contracted the disease worldwide.

The German company withdrew the product from the market in 1996 and the World Health Organisation banned it in 1997.

Over the years scores of cases were reported of patients dying of CJD after receiving tissue transplants. Four new cases were reported in Canada this year.

In Japan, where the disease killed 69 patients, each claimant has received $600 000 compensation.

First South African

Britz said Stokes was the first African to die of the rare disease.

Cuyler Clinic general manager Gloria Murison said Stokes was admitted to the clinic's intensive care unit in January, where he was treated until his death. He started showing the first symptoms of the disease in February this year. She confirmed that he died at 8.15 on Tuesday as a result of CJD, of which mad-cow disease is a variant.

She said there was an international dispute about how patients contracted the rare disease after operations.

SAA Netcare Travel Clinics medical director Dr Stephen Toovey, who provided the Cuyler Clinic with a report, said patients who underwent brain or spinal surgery before 1997 should contact the surgeon who performed the operation to determine whether Lyodura tissue dressing was used. He added that not all Lyodura tissue dressing could be linked to CJD.

Autopsy

The Stokes family was still badly traumatised on Tuesday. "The family at least had an opportunity to take leave of Jan, but it is still very sad," a relative said on Tuesday.

Stokes and his twin brother Tom worked together at a car spares plant, Gearmax Car Spares Manufacturers. His two other brothers are travelling from abroad to attend the funeral. Stokes was married and the couple has a two-year-old daughter.

Funeral arrangements have not yet been finalised. An autopsy would be done to determine whether Stokes died of classic CJD or mad-cow disease. Murison said the autopsy results were likely to claim international interest.

Afrikaans version

- Die Burger