A man in Texas has been confirmed as the fourth case of Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) in the United States. Though people generally call it Mad Cow disease, when present in humans the disease is known as vCJD.
Little information has been released about the latest victim, except that he lived in Texas and, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), had been traveling extensively throughout Europe and the Middle East. This leads officials to believe he did not contract the disease in the United States, but it’s still unknown where he became infected. Carrie Williams of the Department of State Health Services said that the earlier cases of vCJD were contracted in the United Kingdom (2 of the cases) and Saudi Arabia (1).
The man sought treatment at a Houston hospital on May 2 and died May 15. The presence of vCJD was detected in the man’s brain after an autopsy and the diagnosis was confirmed on June 2. Though the man sought treatment in Houston, it’s being reported that he did not live in the city.
Ordinary human to human contact does not transmit the disease. The disease is caused by eating infected meat or via blood. This is why people who lived in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe for extended periods of time are not allowed to donate blood in the United States.
The disease causes dementia and neurological disorders in humans and is always fatal. It is caused by abnormal prions in the brain. Prions are versions of a protein normally found on cell surfaces. In vCJD, an abnormal version of a prion alters and destroys the brain tissue. This causes symptoms which include rapidly progressing dementia, personality changes, problems with muscle coordination and impaired judgment and thinking.
Although doctors can make a speculative diagnosis of Mad Cow disease, the only way to confirm it is through an autopsy or brain biopsy. There is no test or cure for the disease at this time.
Individuals infected with vCJD can sometimes live many years with no symptoms. It can lie dormant in the body making it difficult to assess when and where the person contracted it. According to Kathy Barton with the City of Houston Health and Human Services Department vCJD does not exist in the United States food chain. “In the United States, we’ve never had that practice of feeding cattle infected cattle,” Barton said.
Williams stated that “there is no public health threat associated with this case.”
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