Life-saving blood is needed for everything from treating cancers and chronic conditions to helping trauma victims. But blood donations have dropped to crisis levels during the pandemic.
Blood has special traits unique to every person.
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Our bodies contain trillions of red blood cells. Each is covered in an array of proteins and sugars, inherited from our parents, which determine our blood group.
Creutzfeld-Jacob disease occurs in about one to two in every million people each year, most often in late middle-age.
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News that a Sydney man has contracted Creutzfeld-Jacob disease serves to highlight that we still don’t know how to prevent a disease that most often goes unreported, and unremarked on.