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More than 40 cases of a mysterious brain disease resembling mad cow disease have been reported in Canada.
According to CBC, the disease has similarities to the rare and fatal brain disorder known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) and its variants, including bovine spongiform encephalopathy, also known as cow disease. crazy woman.
Health officials in New Brunswick, Canada are now struggling to understand how 43 people contracted the disease and what the unknown neurological disease is.
Five people have died, officials confirmed.
Over 40 cases of mysterious brain disease (brain scan file image) that resembles ‘mad cow disease’ have been reported in Canada
As investigation and research continues to determine what the disease is, neurologist Dr Neil Cashman says he thinks it could be an environmental toxin.
According to CBC, the first case diagnosed in the region occurred in 2015, but cases have continued to increase over the years. In 2020 there have been 24 reported cases and so far in 2021 there have been six cases.
Mayor Bertrand, Yvon Godin, told the news site that residents are “very, very worried” about the disease.
“The residents are anxious, they ask, ‘Is this moose meat? Is it a deer? Is it contagious?’ We need to find out, as quickly as possible, what is causing this disease, ”Godin said.
As investigation and research continues to determine what the disease is, neurologist Dr. Neil Cashman has offered insight into what it is not.
He says there is no evidence that it is a prion disease like Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
“ There is no evidence, not a clue – even in the three autopsies that were performed – of human prion disease. It really surprised me, ”he told the CBC.
“So in essence it’s something new, and we have to get on the stick and figure out what it is.”
As Cashman and a team of experts continue to search for more answers, he says, due to the fact that cases are limited to certain areas, the disease “fits the notion of an environmental toxin.”
WHAT IS MAD COW DISEASE?
Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), is a fatal neurological disease in cattle caused by an abnormal protein that destroys the brain and spinal cord.
The disease was first identified in Britain in 1986, although research suggests that the first infections may have occurred spontaneously in the 1970s.
It is believed to be spread by feeding calves with meat and bone meal contaminated with BSE.
Dubbed mad cow disease, bovine spongiform encephalopathy was first diagnosed in the 1980s, but the global ban on British beef was imposed by the European Union in 1996 following the outbreak British.
Humans can contract variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (vCJD) if beef products contaminated with central nervous system tissue from cattle infected with mad cow disease are eaten.
There is no treatment and 177 people have been killed by the variant.
There were 36,000 diagnosed cases of mad cow disease in Britain in 1992, which led to the ban on British beef exports and the deaths of dozens.
In August 1996, a British coroner ruled that Peter Hall, a 20-year-old vegetarian who died of vCJD, contracted the disease while eating beef burgers as a child.
The verdict was the first to legally link a human death to mad cow disease.
“It will take a lot of scientific acumen to pin it down to a cause,” he said, adding that it was uncertain when they will have a more concrete answer for the public.
“It is possible that ongoing investigations will give us the cause in a week, or it is possible that it will give us the cause in a year,” he said.
Cashman encouraged residents to continue with their usual daily activities and to “stay calm”.
The bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) epidemic – a degenerative brain disease – in cattle in the mid-1990s decimated British livestock farming and led to the slaughter of 4.4 million animals.
The human strain, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, has killed more than 170 people in the UK.
Dubbed mad cow disease, BSE was first diagnosed in the 1980s, but the UK’s global beef ban was imposed by the European Union in 1996 following the UK outbreak.
The EU lifted the ban in 2006, but many countries continued to refuse to allow imports of British beef. Among them, Canada, which finally lifted its embargo in 2015.
British farmers recently signed five-year deals with China and Japan valued at $ 317 million and $ 175 million, respectively.
At the start of the rapidly spreading COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, US officials lifted the ban on British beef.
The move follows a series of inspections by US officials at UK farms and slaughterhouses in the summer of 2019.
British farmers believe they can tap growing demand in America for premium cuts of grass-fed beef, driven by consumers concerned about growth hormones being injected into American cattle.
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