A 36-year-old Taiwanese male is very likely to have died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the Cabinet-level Department of Health said Dec. 8.
The patient, who died this May, resided in the United Kingdom between 1989 and 1997, when bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in cattle was at its peak in the U.K.
It is unlikely that the patient contracted his disease in Taiwan, the DOH said.
Scientists believe that many years after eating cattle infected with BSE, patients can develop symptoms of CJD.
In the case of the 36-year-old patient, he began to show CJD symptoms, including memory loss and hypersomnia, in the second half of 2008. Doctors reported to health authorities in March 2009 that they suspected he had CJD.
After the patient died this year, his family refused to give doctors permission to perform a biopsy, the only way the doctors could determine the cause of death with certainty. His body has since been cremated.
“Though tests were not conducted, the man is an extremely likely case of CJD, based on his symptoms, travel history and the results of magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalograms,” the Centers for Disease Control under the DOH said.
The DOH further specified that the patient probably died from variant CJD. “The World Health Organization has listed the man as a vCJD case as his brain waves and cerebrospinal fluid showed symptoms of CJD and vCJD simultaneously,” said Chen Shun-seng, convener of DOH’s CJD advisory committee and a neurologist at Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital.
According to the World Health Organization, CJD is a fatal human degenerative condition characterized by progressive brain dysfunction and is categorized into four forms: sporadic, familial, iatrogenic and variant. “It is believed to be caused by self-replicating host-encoded protein or prion protein,” the WHO said.
According to the UK Department of Health, vCJD differs from CJD in that the former is more likely to strike younger people. The average age of death for vCJD victims is around 30 years old, it said.
Whereas CJD is commonly known as mad cow disease, vCJD is known as human mad-cow disease.
As of October 2010, there have been 243 possible or extremely possible cases of CJD reported in Taiwan, resulting in 102 deaths. Of the deaths, five have been confirmed as resulting from CJD, the DOH said. (HZW)
Write to Grace Kuo at morningk@mail.gio.gov.tw