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- Researchers believe that five people have died from the disease.
- A leaked memo from health officials asked doctors to watch for symptoms of brain disease.
- This unknown brain disease causes hallucinations, memory loss, spasms, muscle wasting and broken teeth.
- Visit the Insider home page for more stories.
At least 43 people in the Canadian province of New Brunswick have fallen ill with an unknown brain disease that causes spasms, memory loss and hallucinations, and doctors are puzzled.
Public health officials estimate that five people in the so-called “cluster” have died from the disease since the first case was spotted in 2015.
“We haven’t seen a cluster of diagnostic resistant neurological diseases like this in the past 20 years,” Michael Coulthart, head of the Canadian CJD Surveillance Network, told The Guardian.
The disease emerged this month, when Radio-Canada and CBC got their hands on a leaked memo sent by the province’s public health agency to local doctors.
The note told doctors to keep an eye out for patients with symptoms of the rare brain disease of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease – blurred vision, hallucinations or disorientation – but the tests rule out CJD.
Patients first came in with spasms, then developed drooling and broken teeth
Dr Alier Marrero, a neurologist leading the investigation in New Brunswick, said the patients initially arrived with pain, spasms and changes in behavior. However, since these symptoms are linked to a number of health issues, this was not a major concern.
Symptoms progressed to impaired cognitive abilities, muscle atrophy, drooling and tooth breakage over the next 18 to 36 months. Some of these patients also had disturbing hallucinations, such as insects crawling on their skin.
Marrero performed a series of tests – brain imaging, lumbar puncture, and toxicology tests – to make sure the brain disease was not a known neurodegenerative disorder.
Researchers are looking for answers
Researchers are working with different national groups and various health experts to find out what it is and how it is caused, including by studying the local environment.
Valerie Sim, a neurodegenerative disease researcher at the University of Alberta, told The Guardian that it’s unusual for a brain disease to have such a wide range of common symptoms. Normally there would be a few key signs.
Overall, Sim said, “there just isn’t enough information yet” to draw any conclusions.
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