An urgent multi-agency investigation is under way in Leicestershire after health experts identified a "cluster" of five cases of the human form of BSE linked with the village of Queniborough and the surrounding area where four of the victims have died.
A fifth man, who is also thought to be suffering from new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), is understood to be in a "poorly" condition.
The Department of Health, the national CJD Surveillance Unit, officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and local health officials are investigating the source of the disease after statistical evidence revealed that the high number of cases, all discovered within a 10 km radius, were unlikely to have occurred by chance.
Health officials in Leicestershire began interviewing relatives of the victims yesterday to identify any connection between them.
A leading member of the investigation, Dr Philip Monk, a consultant in communicable diseases at Leicestershire Health Authority, said possible causes included common consumption of a contaminated beef product or genetic susceptibility to the disease. It is the first time that a cluster of cases has been identified in the UK and Dr Monk said that while the deaths were a tragedy for the families involved, the investigation provided an opportunity to learn about the disease.
The director of the CJD Surveillance Unit, Prof Robert Will, also suggested it was wrong to assume the Queniborough cluster was a "statistical blip". He said the investigation had already discounted links between the victims' occupations, where they lived and their medical history.
Three of the victims were directly linked to the village of Queniborough, although local health officials believed until last year that their deaths in a small area of Leicestershire were a coincidence. The first three victims in the current investigation died within a 12-week period in 1998. Mr Glenn Day (35) lived in the village, Ms Stacey Robinson (18), also lived in Queniborough and Ms Pamela Beyless (24) was a regular visitor to the village. The fourth victim, a 19-year-old man who has not been named, died in May this year and lived nearby. The fifth, a 24-year-old man, whose case triggered the investigation, also lives close to Queniborough.
Mr Arthur Beyless, whose daughter Pamela died from the human form of BSE in 1998, said yesterday he was not surprised the five cases had been linked. "It is something we have talked about in the past," he said. "About how strange it was that three of the people who died should have come from Queni borough, or had links with it."
As the investigation gathered pace, schoolchildren in the Queniborough area were given a questionnaire in an attempt to source food consumed in family households during the past 20 years. The questionnaire asks families to identify where they bought milk, chicken and beef, because the incubation period for vCJD is thought to be up to 30 years and health officials believe the four victims probably contracted the disease in the 1980s.
The official number of vCJD cases in the UK is 75 and the first cases were identified in 1995. At least 67 people have died from the disease and the number of cases identified so far this year stands at 12.
The village of Queniborough, which is twinned with the French town of Sceaux-Courtempierre, is a close-knit community. The clerk of the parish council, Mrs Richardson, told The Irish Times yesterday that people were concerned with the level of media interest in the investigation. The French government has banned the import of British beef, but Mrs Richardson said she did not believe farms in Queniborough had supplied any beef to the twinned town. "There are a few farms here, maybe two or three, but I am sure the area has not supplied beef," she said.