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While being treated at a North Carolina hospital 18 people have reportedly been exposed to
a rare brain disease that is considered incurable and fatal.
"There surgeries were performed with instruments that were not properly sterilized exposing
them to a degenerative neurological disorder referred to as CJD."
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or CJD affects only one in every one million people worldwide
and is reportedly fatal 100% of the time. The surgeries took place at Novnt Health Forsyth
Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
The medical tools used to treat a patient who was positive for CJD were used on other
patients over the course of three weeks. Now those instruments were sterilized by the usual
hospital standards but the CDC recommends tools exposed to CJD be destroyed.
However, hospital officials in Winston-Salem do say the likelihood of these 18 patients
who were exposed to CJD actually contracting it are low.
According to CNN, "no cases of the disease have been linked to the use of contaminated
medical equipment since 1976."
Fox News adds in the United States, "there have been only four reported cases of transmission
via surgical instruments."
Whatever the odds, some patients are still very upset with the news
"I'm angry, very very angry that something so little could cost me my life."
What's worse, the disease reportedly could take years to show itself if one of the 18
does in fact contract the CJD.