Strasbourg, 12/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe adopted a recommendation aimed at preventing the transmission of the new variant of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease through blood transfusions. The authorities of 43 Member States of the Council of Europe, including the fifteen members of the European Union, are invited to take a series of precautionary measures to strengthen their regulations on blood and plasma. These measures mainly cover: - the establishment of a centralised surveillance system for the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, as well as a system of traceability of blood donated in order to withdraw products, where necessary; - the assessment of the share of the population which runs the risk of being exposed to the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and the definition of precautionary measures to reduce the risk linked to blood transfusions; - the finalisation, as soon as possible, of a sensitive and specific test for diagnosing and screening for this new variant in the striatal spinal degeneration syndrome discovered in the early twenties by two doctors in medicine whose name the disease bears.