BRITAIN: Just as concerns were abating, research published yesterday suggests the human form of mad cow disease in Britain could be more widespread than thought.
Scientists have estimated that 3,800 people in Britain could be unwittingly carrying the prion protein responsible for variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), a fatal brain-wasting condition.
"Our findings need to be interpreted with caution, but cannot be discounted," said Dr David Hilton, of Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, and lead author of the report published in the Journal of Pathology.
Dr Hilton and scientists from the CJD Surveillance Unit in Edinburgh and Imperial College in London studied 12,674 stored appendix and tonsil samples removed during routine operations in the late 1990s from people in their 20s.
Three showed evidence of prion protein accumulation associated with vCJD.
Based on their findings, they came up with the 3,800 figure.
"There is still much to learn about vCJD and the presence of the protein in these tissue samples does not necessarily mean that those affected will go on to develop vCJD," Dr Hilton added.
The scientists stressed that only one of the three positive samples showed a pattern of the prion accumulation similar to that seen in known vCJD cases. The other two were different so their significance is uncertain.
Sir Leszek Borysiewicz, of Imperial College in London, said the figures are not in the alarmist range but warrant further investigation.
"They scream out at me that we still need better diagnostic tests," he said in an interview.
"It is a relatively unusual condition but every case is one more than you would want," he added.