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Creutzfeldt-Jakob on the rise in France

Donnerstag, 9. November 2000 / 12:55 Uhr

Paris - The number of cases of Creutzfeld-Jakob disease, a fatal disease that attacks the human brain, is on the rise in France, the director of neuropathology at a Paris hospital told the newspaper France Soir for its Thursday edition.

"The curve (measuring the cases) began rising in the mid- Nineties," Jean-Jacques Hauw, of the Pitie-Salpetriere hospital, told the daily. In 1996, there were 60 suspected cases of Creutzfeld-Jakob found in France, fewer than half of which were confirmed by autopsy. In 1999, the number of suspected cases had grown to 100, with 60 confirmed.

A variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob has been linked to the eating of meat from cows infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or "mad cow disease". The report comes as another case of BSE was detected in France, the first ever found in the southern department of Tarn. It raises to 93 the number of diseased cows found since the beginning of the year, more than twice the number discovered in the previous eight years.

This significant increase has begun to panic consumers and moved many cities to remove beef from the dining halls of their school systems. According to France Soir, loopholes in the surveillance system make it difficult to determine systematically which form of Creutzfeld-Jakob the victim contracted.

Autopsies are not performed on approximately 40 per cent of people suspected of having died from the disease, despite the fact, as Hauw noted, "an examination of lesions in the brain allow us to diagnose Creutzfeldt- Jakob immediately. "More important, it is the only means to determine if it is the classic form of the disease or the new variant, which is transmitted by 'mad cow disease'."

Officially, only two people have died in France from the Creutzfeldt-Jakob variant linked to BSE, with the death of a 19-year- old man also strongly suspected of having been caused by the variant.

In Britain, 84 people have so far died from the Creutzfeldt-Jakob variant. According to Annick Alperovitch, a scientist with the government's Cruetzfeldt-Jakob surveillance agency, "France will probably be the second-most affected country" in the world in terms of BSE-associated deaths.

On Tuesday, Junior Health Minister Dominique Gillot warned that a further increase in the number of Creutzfeldt-Jakob cases must be expected in the coming years. "Given the increased attention paid by doctors to the disease and given the (disease's) incubation period, 10, 20 or perhaps 30 years, it is foreseeable that we will experience an increase in (Creutzfeldt-Jakob) cases," Gillot said. She added, however, that not all the cases will necessarily be connected to BSE. (la/dpa)