LONDON - Just days after her plight was made public, Zoe Jeffries,
the British teen who contracted Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease,
has died. Zoe, whose mother believes her daughter became infected
from eating hamburgers, died Saturday.
As,
British officials released their report on the mad cow disease
crisis last week, Zoe's family allowed TV cameras into their
home to record her plight.
The
redheaded teen was seen lying motionless in bed, held by
her mother. She had been suffering from the disease, an
infection that produces microscopic holes in the brain,
for more than two years.
Zoe
began showing symptoms of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the
human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE,
in May 1998.
Her
mother likens the girl's death to murder, saying it's like
someone had stuck a knife in Zoe's body.
The
British government has promised millions of dollars in compensation
for families like the Jeffries.
More
than 80 people have now died from the brain-wasting disease
in Britain and computer predictions show up to 6,000 people
were infected between 1980 and 1996.
Until
now, most of the known victims have been young people from
12 years old upwards, with only a handful of deaths among
more mature people aged up to 55.
BSE
was first identified in 1986, but scientists believe it
originated in the 1970s from a single cow or other animal
that became ill as the result of a gene mutation.
The
epidemic developed when new farming practices allowed cattle
feed to contain ground cow remains, a practice that has
been banned since 1996. The feed contained pieces of infected
cows.
As a
result of the outbreak in Britain, Canadian blood banks
have refused donations from people who lived in or visited
Britain between 1980 and 1996. No cases of BSE have ever
been found in domestic Canadian cattle.
About
180,000 cattle were affected in Britain and another 200
cases were reported in Portugal. Smaller levels of infection
were also recorded in Ireland, Belgium, Luxembourg, the
Netherlands, France, Denmark and Switzerland.
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