TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- In a rare country-to-country arrangement, Scottish health officials trying to prevent the spread of the human version of mad cow disease have turned to a New Jersey blood bank for plasma for sick children.

Community Blood Services of Paramus is flying frozen plasma to Glasgow, where the antibody-rich blood component is being given to premature babies and other children born since the start of 1996 - when the United Kingdom destroyed all beef cattle considered at risk of having mad cow disease.

The human version is an always-fatal, untreatable degenerative brain disorder called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. More than 125 Europeans, nearly all in the United Kingdom, were infected from 1980 through 1996, most likely from eating tainted beef.

There are no known cases of blood spreading the disease, but officials in the United Kingdom are not taking any chances when it comes to seriously ill children.

"They want to get away from the potential for mad cow disease until we can be sure what causes it and be able to detect it," said Dennis Todd, chief executive of Community Blood Services. The blood bank will supply up to 500 units of plasma per month.

British health authorities have ordered that sources outside Europe be used for all young children getting plasma -- the liquid part of blood that is rich in the antibodies and blood-clotting proteins many newborns need.

England plans to begin importing plasma for itself and northern Wales from a Scottsdale, Ariz., business.

Deliveries from the New Jersey company began in mid-September, after multiple inspections by Scottish and U.S. health officials and several months of test runs to ensure the shipped plasma stays potent. It is frozen instantly, packed in dry ice and flown in refrigerated containers.

Countries usually depend on their own blood supplies, and shipments from another country are rare, said Jim MacPherson, chief executive of America's Blood Centers, which represents not-for-profit centers collecting about half of U.S. blood donations.

While red blood cells are often in short supply around the world, there is plenty of blood plasma available.

All blood donated in the United States is screened for the AIDS virus and other diseases. But there is no test yet to detect Creutzfeldt-Jakob, so U.S. blood banks bar donations from people who have traveled in countries with mad cow disease, mainly England and France.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob and mad cow disease are believed to be caused by mutant proteins that cause holes in the brain. Cattle get mad cow disease by eating infected tissue from goats, sheep or cattle, but such animal feed has been banned in the United States and United Kingdom for several years.

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