Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment she has made of the reliability of diagnostic testing of blood samples for vCJD.

Clinical diagnostic testing for variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) is provided by the National Health Service, but there is currently no licensed blood screening test for vCJD, although there is ongoing research in this field. The National CJD Research and Surveillance Unit is involved in developing specialist investigations for vCJD, in collaboration with colleagues in Europe and internationally, with further information available at the following link:

https://www.cjd.ed.ac.uk/surveillance/diagnosis-and-testing