Morocco's health institute denies imports of British blood

Morocco's Pasteur Institute, the body supplying the country with blood products, denied it has imported any blood by-products from Great Britain.

The institute denied a report by "The Guardian" that Morocco could be one of the countries that imported from 1996 to 2000, British blood products donated by donors contaminated by the mad cow disease.

The statement explains that during this period the Pasteur Institute, as the sole body authorized to supply blood products in Morocco, ordered all needed products from Austria, Belgium, Germany, France and Canada. The labs from which it obtained blood products are all recognized and authorized by a national experts commission set up in 1994, says the institute.