Patients May Have Gotten Tainted Fluid

More than 100 patients in the territory were given a fluid suspected of having been contaminated with a human variant of “mad cow” disease, hospital authorities said. The suspected contamination came to light after a Briton who donated blood used to make the fluid died of the brain-wasting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Hong Kong radio reported. Ko Wing-man, deputy director of the Hospital Authority, said 111 patients in six hospitals in the territory were injected with the fluid between July and December, the radio said. The chance that the patients would develop the disease was “extremely remote,” Ko said.