HAEMOPHILIACS already infected with two potentially fatal viruses fear they are being unnecessarily exposed to a third after health bosses refused to change their treatment.

Blood products imported from Germany are used to treat haemophiliacs from across the North-East at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle.

News that the first case of BSE has been reported in a German-bred cow has raised fears that donated blood could be infected with its human equivalent, vCJD.

But health bosses have refused to switch to a low-risk synthetic treatment in place of the Factor 8 clotting agent from human donors.

Of the 95 North-East haemophiliacs infected with HIV through contaminated blood in the early 1980s, 95 per cent were also infected with the fatal liver disease hepatitis C. Just 17 are still alive.

One haemophiliac, who asked not to be named and has tested positive for both HIV and hepatitis C, said the continued refusal to use synthetic, or recombinant, blood products put the surviving patients at risk of contracting vCJD.

He said: "They should recall the German product now they know there is BSE in Germany until they know it is safe.

"I can either bleed or I can take a product which could kill me, when there is a safe product sitting in their fridges.

"If I come down with CJD and they have knowingly given me a product that has got CJD in it, where does that leave the hospital?"

RVI medical director Dr Mike Laker said a Department of Health circular had indicated that only patients who had not already been infected with the hepatitis C virus or HIV should be treated with the recombinant product.

He said that the synthetic blood product was less widely available and more expensive than Factor 8 from human donors.

A Department of Health spokesman said it was up to the individual consultants which product they prescribed for their patients.

He said the human-derived Factor 8 from Germany was believed to be safe, but this situation was being kept under review.

The product is used in Wales and Northern Ireland and will be used in Scotland from next spring. The spokesman said it would cost £30m to £40m to give it to all haemophiliacs in England.