- DENVER - Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease, an illness similar to mad cow disease, claimed the lives of two
people at a Colorado hospital this year, and there is concern other
patients
may have been exposed to the disease, a hospital spokeswoman said
Friday.
-
- It wasn't immediately known when the patients died at
Exempla St. Joseph Hospital, spokeswoman Kathleen Ferguson said. But she
said at least six other patients may have been exposed to Creutzfeldt-Jakob
through surgical instruments used while treating the two patients who
died.
-
- Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or CJD, attacks the brain,
killing cells and creating gaps in tissue. The brain takes on a sponge-like
appearance.
-
- Early symptoms include memory problems, mood changes
and lack of coordination. The disease progresses to shakiness and dementia.
Victims are eventually unable to move or speak.
-
- A separate form of the disease has been linked directly
to eating meat from cattle infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy,
or mad cow disease. Nearly 100 people in Europe have died of the disease
since 1995.
-
- About two cases of CJD are reported in Colorado every
year, said Cindy Parmenter of the Colorado Department of Public Health
and Environment.
-
- "We had four in 2000 and two or three in years
before
that," Parmenter said. "It usually happens in people 60 and
older.
It's not totally unusual."
-
-
-
- MainPage
http://www.rense.com
-
-
-
- This
Site Served by TheHostPros
|