variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD)
variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) and Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD): Two Different Diseases
As of February 2004, 156 cases of the human form of mad cow disease, known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), have been reported worldwide, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But there has never been a case of vCJD contracted in the United States.
One resident of Florida was diagnosed in 2002 with a probable case of vCJD, but it is believed she acquired it in the United Kingdom, where she lived for more than 12 years during an epidemic of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease. It is believed that the vCJD victims got the human variant by eating beef products that came from BSE infected cattle.
The classic form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) has been found in the United States. Unlike the variant, the classic form is not known to be food related. "CJD and vCJD are best thought of as two different diseases," says Lawrence Schonberger, M.D., M.P.H., epidemiologist and assistant director of the CDC's National Center for Infectious Diseases. "CJD was around long before the emergence of BSE in cattle." Both diseases are brain disorders, but the patterns of the brain lesions they leave are distinct.
Variant CJD is found in younger patients and the length of illness is longer. There is no treatment for either disease, and they always result in death. The average age for death of vCJD is under 30 years versus the mid to late 60s for classic CJD.
Neither vCJD nor CJD is spread through direct contact with others with the infection. The classic form of CJD may be inherited (familial), transmitted by infectious surgical instruments or tissues (iatrogenic), or occur among people with no known environmental risk factors (sporadic). The sporadic form generally occurs at a rate of about 1 case per million people per year, and familial and iatrogenic cases are even rarer, according to the CDC.
References:
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
May-June 2004
www.fda.gov/fdac/features/2004/304_cow.html
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