Thirteen New England Patients May be Exposed to Brain Disease

Thirteen people who recently underwent neurosurgery in New Hampshire and Massachusetts may have been exposed to a rare and fatal brain disease, according to Reuters.

The said disease is similar to "mad cow" illness in cattle because of a medical device used in both states. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health said that five patients treated at Cape Cod Hospital between June and August are at low risk of infection called Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

New Hampshire announced that eight patients may have been exposed but they were treated at a hospital in Manchester. "The risk for CJD exposure from the instrument was first identified by the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services after the device was used on a patient in New Hampshire, who was subsequently suspected to have CJD," said the Massachusetts health body.

"The CJD risk to the Massachusetts patients is extremely low as those patients underwent spinal surgery and not brain surgery," they said. Anne Roach, a spokeswoman for the Massachusetts health body said the device was from Medtronic Inc, but she could not immediately identify it or explain how it could have remained infected over the course of months. As of late, Medtronic had not yet responded to Reuters.

On Wednesday, New Hampshire warned that eight patients who recently underwent neurosurgery at a hospital in Manchester may have been exposed to the rare and fatal brain condition as a result of the ninth patient's surgery, believed to have had a sporadic form of CJD.

Officials in both states said there is no risk that should alarm the general public and that all the patients have already been notified. "After extensive expert discussion, we could not conclude that there was no risk, so we are taking the step of notifying the patients," Dr. Jose Montero, New Hampshire's director of public health, said on Wednesday.