3rd Meeting: Working Group on International Reference Materials for Diagnosis and Study of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSEs)

Overview

The Third Meeting of the WHO Working Group on International Reference Materials for Diagnosis and Study of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (WHO TSE Working Group) was held at WHO in Geneva on 1-2 March 2001. The meeting was opened by Dr Yasuhiro Suzuki, Executive Director of the WHO Health Technology and Pharmaceuticals Cluster. Dr Suzuki acknowledged the increasing concern about the troubling possibility that blood products and other medicines and surgical procedures might spread the agent of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD). He welcomed the Group and endorsed their recent efforts to facilitate improved diagnostic testing for CJD by development of internationally agreed-upon reference materials.