CJD death toll reaches 43

03 August 1999

CJD death toll reaches 43

ANOTHER person died last month from new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (nvCJD) – the degenerative brain disorder linked to mad cow disease.

The death brings the total to 43 since nvCJD was first recorded in 1995, although scientists say it is still too soon to discount the possibility of a nvCJD epidemic.

The number of nvCJD deaths so far this year is four, compared with 16 last year, 10 in 1997 and 10 in 1996..

The Daily Telegraph reports that a man killed himself over his baseless fears that he was developing the human form of mad cow disease.

David Isherwood was worried because he was among the first 2,000 children in Britain to be given growth hormone based on the pituitary gland of dead donors.

He had been contacted eight years earlier to say he had a chance of contracting nvCJD.