DUBLIN, Ireland, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- A young patient in Ireland appears to be the country's first indigenous case of human mad cow disease, European authorities said.
Results of tests on the young male patient have confirmed he is suffering from a probable case of variant Creutzfeldt Jakob disease, a fatal brain illness humans can contract from eating beef products contaminated with the mad cow pathogen, reported the Eurosurveillance Weekly, a joint project put out by French and English disease experts.
The man, who is in his early 20s and resides at a Dublin Hospital, had not received a blood transfusion or undergone surgical procedures, both of which might transmit the mad cow pathogen. He also never lived abroad.
"This is therefore Ireland's first indigenous case," the Weekly's editorial team wrote.
Ireland previously had detected one other vCJD case, but that patient lived in the United Kingdom at the height of that country's mad cow outbreak.
Behind England, Ireland has the second highest rate worldwide of mad cow disease in their cattle. Last year, the Irish National CJD Surveillance Unit conducted a risk analysis and calculated that one additional case of vCJD would occur in Ireland in the future.
