Local meat link to vCJD cluster
8 November 2000
Local meat link to vCJD cluster
By FWi staff
LOCALLY supplied meat was probably to blame for a cluster of deaths from the human form of BSE in a Leicestershire village, say investigators.
An interim report into the five cases of variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (vCJD) in Queniborough says the only common link was that they all victims ate beef.
“Meat is the only factor that we can establish that potentially links all the cases,” the man leading the investigation, Dr Philip Monk, of Leicester Health Authority, told the BBC.
The inquiry ruled out baby food and school meals as likely sources of the infection.
It has also discounted environmental factors, including drinking water supplies, and the jobs done by the victims. They lived within a three-mile radius of one another
The investigation will now concentrate on the local meat supply chain.