Reuters Health
NEW YORK -
There is no evidence to date of the presence of new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease (nvCJD)--the human version of "mad cow'' disease--in
the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention (news - web sites) (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia.
Then again,
"this is one world. People have traveled to the United Kingdom....
We are not 100% sure that a case of (nvCJD) will not arise in
the future,'' CDC researcher Dr. Lawrence B. Schonberger told
Reuters Health in an interview.
The CDC analyzed
data concerning all cases of CJD that were diagnosed between 1979
and 1998 in the United States. During that time there were 4,751
deaths due to the disease, according to the report published in
the November 8th issue of The Journal of the American Medical
Association (news - web sites).
This particular
strain found in the US is an older strain of CJD and is not transmitted
by eating beef as is suspected in the 'variant' CJD form that
emerged in Britain in the 1990s.
"Although
these illness have the same name, they are different diseases,''
Schonberger explained.
One difference
that the CDC report identifies is that the average age of those
infected in the US is 68 years, while in the UK the average age
of infection is 27 years. And autopsies of the brains of those
who have died reveal different types of lesions, suggesting a
different mode of action between the two illnesses.
Both forms
of CJD result in the formation of plaques that build up in the
brain, resulting in loss of brain function and death. While the
disease is not transmittable like a cold virus or a sexually transmitted
disease, the US has asked people who spent more than 6 months
in the United Kingdom between 1980 and 1996 to refrain from donating
blood, Schonberger noted.
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