Officials look at possible case of rare disease in Portsmouth

PORTSMOUTH

The state public health department is looking into a possible case of a rare degenerative brain disorder that has been linked to eating beef from cattle infected with mad cow disease.

Health department spokesman Larry Hill stressed that officials are looking at a range of neurological disorders and it has not been determined what the patient at Bon Secours Maryview Medical Center in Portsmouth has.

"We want to keep the public informed," Hill said. "If there's a concern, we'll definitely let people know."

One possibility is a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, known as vCJD, a rare degenerative brain disorder that has been linked to consumption of contaminated beef. The disease is not spread through casual contact from person to person.

There are also other forms of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, known as CJD, that are unrelated to beef consumption. State officials are looking into those as well.

According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease strikes about 200 people a year in the United States. The most common forms of the disease have no known cause or are linked to a genetic mutation. Fewer than 1 percent of cases are linked to medical procedures.

To date, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have recorded three cases in the United States of the variant that has been linked to mad cow disease.

In two of the cases, the people were born and raised in Great Britain - which has seen the most cases - before moving to this country. The third person had recently moved from Saudi Arabia.

Nancy Young, (757) 446-2947, nancy.young@pilotonline.com