New York Health Officials: No vCJD Cluster

Fears of variant Cruetzfeld Jakob disease, believed to be the human equivalent of so-called mad cow disease, have surfaced again --- this time in a two-county region of New York following the deaths of five people whose symptoms closely resembled the disease.

New York health officials, however, caution New Yorkers not to be concerned. Of the five confirmed deaths that occurred in the two-county area, three were confirmed to be caused by CJD, but --- and this is important --- none of these cases were identified as the vCJD linked with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, so-called mad cow disease. One case was ruled out, and the other was inconclusive because no autopsy was completed.

The more common type of Cruetzfeldt-Jakob disease, known as classic CJD, linked with the three victims, causes roughly one in 10,000 deaths in the U.S. each year. Unlike vCJD, it is not associated with eating tainted beef.

Only one case of vCJD has been diagnosed in the United States, and this involved a woman who is believed to have developed the disease in Britain before locating to Florida.

Posted by Jim Langcuster at November 1, 2004 09:54 AM | TrackBack