ALMOST one in three haemophiliacs treated at the North-East's blood centre have been exposed to blood from a donor who developed Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD).

Patients affected will now be offered counselling, with many facing the possibility that they have been infected with a third lethal virus, after already contracting HIV and hepatitis C.

Staff at the Newcastle Blood Centre, which treats haemophiliacs from across the region, have examined treatment records to determine who received blood products from a donor who later contracted variant CJD.

Dr Mike Laker, medical director at the Royal Victoria Infirmary which is responsible for the centre, said about 170 people were receiving treatment when the affected products were in use, in 1997-98.

He said: "Probably less than a third of the total number of patients treated at that time are affected.

"These are patients who received treatment with batches which included products from this particular donor."

He said letters had been sent to all patients explaining the situation, and giving them the option of finding out if they are among those affected.

He said: "If people want to know whether they have received material from this donor, we will tell them.

"But we cannot identify infection from a blood test and there will be those who may not want to know."

He said counselling sessions would be arranged for patients who wanted to know if they have been affected and would stress that the risk of vCJD transmission through blood was theoretical.

Fears over possible vCJD infection has prompted calls for haemophiliacs to be treated with artificial products, but Dr Laker said these were only widely available from 1998.

Artificial treatment, called recombinant, is only available in the North-East to patients who have not already been infected with HIV and hepatitis C.

A member of the Haemophilia North group, whose husband has been infected with HIV and hepatitis C, said the scare underlined arguments for using recombinant.

She said: "It is really quite shocking that almost a third could be affected."

British blood products used to treat haemophiliacs were replaced by imported plasma in 1998 over fears of possible vCJD infection.