- Touching and hugging
- Sharing meals
- Caring for someone at home
- Some surgery and instruments
- Certain tissues in hospitals
- Blood and organ donation rules
The first worry in many families is whether the illness can spread to them. The short answer is reassuring, and the detail is on the pages below.
Can I catch it from the person I am caring for?
No. There is no evidence that sporadic CJD passes between people through ordinary day to day contact. Prion diseases are not infectious in the usual way: they do not spread through the air, through body fluids in everyday life, or through intimate contact. Support organisations in the UK and the United States both say that relatives and carers need no special precautions.
The one practical point is about blood. Anyone who might come into contact with a person’s blood, for example a nurse or someone dressing a wound, is advised to wear gloves and follow the standard precautions used for every patient.
Is CJD contagious? goes through this in more detail. Care settings covers hospitals, care homes and home care.
How have people acquired prion disease?
The known routes are rare and specific.
Some cases, called iatrogenic, came from medical treatment: human growth hormone taken from pituitary glands before the mid 1980s, grafts of dura mater (the membrane around the brain), corneal transplants and, in a few cases before 1976, contaminated instruments used in brain surgery. Current guidelines have made these cases very rare.
Variant CJD came from eating beef from cattle with BSE, known as mad cow disease. It has also been passed by blood transfusion on a small number of occasions in the UK.
Inherited prion disease is caused by a gene change passed from parent to child. It is not caught from anyone. Genetics explains it.
Sporadic CJD, the most common form, has no known cause.
The safety pages
Each page takes one question at a time:
Who do I ask about my own situation?
Questions about a particular procedure, a transfusion or a family history go to the treating team or the GP. In the UK, suspected cases are referred to the National CJD Research and Surveillance Unit in Edinburgh or the National Prion Clinic in London, and these services advise local teams. In the United States, the CJD Foundation helpline on 1-800-659-1991 can point families to the right people. The Start here routes lead to the page that fits your situation, and How clinical trials work explains research that families often ask about at the same time.
Explore
- Blood and plasmaWhy blood donation rules mention CJD, who is asked not to donate in the UK, and what is known about transfusion and prion disease.
- Safety in care settingsWhat hospitals, care homes and home care teams actually need to do when someone has CJD, and what families are sometimes told that is wrong.
- Deer, venison and CWDChronic wasting disease in deer has never been reported in a person. What hunters and venison eaters are advised to do while that question stays open.
- Food and BSEWhat BSE in cattle meant for people who ate beef, which controls are in place now, and why occasional cattle cases still appear.
- Is CJD contagious?Is CJD contagious? What health agencies and support groups say about everyday contact, caring at home, blood, and the rare medical routes of spread.
- Surgery and instrumentsWhy hospitals treat some instruments differently when CJD is suspected, what happens before an operation, and what this means for routine care.
- Tissue and organ donationWho is excluded from donating organs, tissue or stem cells because of prion disease risk, and how that differs from donating brain tissue for research.