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Three cases of a mad cow - corresponding disease with a 100 % fatality rate have been report in a individual county in Oregon .
Within the last eight months , health officials have confirm one case and name two likely example of the rare brain disease , accord to astatement free by the Hood River County Health Departmenton April 14 . Hood River County is located south of the Columbia River on the Washington - Oregon border . Two of the hoi polloi with the experimental condition have died , the department reported .
One caseful was confirmed by autopsy , while the other two are presumptive , The Oregonian reported . Trish Elliott , music director of the health section , secernate The Oregonian that the presumptive cases can only be reassert after end by examining brain tissue and cerebrospinal fluid — the unmortgaged fluid that surrounds the brain and spinal cord — and she said this process can take months .
" At this clip , there is no identifiable link between these three case , " the health department added .
The excited cow - similar disease reported in Oregon is calledCreutzfeldt - Jakob disease(CJD ) , named for two German MD who first draw the condition in the 1920s . The disease impacts around 1 to 2 people per million worldwide , and the United States sees roughly 350 causa a twelvemonth . About 23,000 to 24,000 people live in Hood River County , according to census data , so meet three CJD cases clip up is statistically strange .
associate : Here ’s how dangerous , deadly prions pass around to the brain
Like unbalanced cow , CJD is a prion disease , intend it ’s get by abnormally folded protein that damage psyche tissue paper ; in CJD , this causes parasite - similar holes to form in the brain . The prions also cause normal proteins in the brain to turncoat , transforming into prion that then impose further scathe .
The disease can get a tidy sum of symptom , including confusedness , disorientation , hallucination , lack of coordination and muscle severity , along with personality change , new - onslaught psychological problem , and seizure . The symptom come along promptly , leaving people with the disease incognizant of their surroundings and unable to pass along . The disease isalways fatal , withabout 70 % of those feign dyingwithin a year of diagnosis .
The most common type of CJD is " sporadic , " meaning normal protein in the brain spontaneously transform into prion for unknown reasons . The next most uncouth type is genetic , actuate by inherited mutations in a gene calledPRNP . The cistron carries instructions to make prion protein ( PrP ) , which is known to be active in the mental capacity but whose normal functions are n’t fully understand . Some cogitation hint the normal interpretation of PrP may serve protect neurons from injury and form connections between neurons .
Perhaps the most famous form of CJD is the rarest , however , account for less than 1 % of cases . It involves prions enroll the body from extraneous sources . For instance , this can occur if a person feed beef from cows that havebovine spongiform encephalopathy(BSE ) , well known as " mad cow disease;“only seven cases of BSEhave ever been observe among Bos taurus in the U.S. Another possible source of prion is through medical vulnerability , such as a person catch a transplant or pedigree blood transfusion from a donor with CJD .
To keep cases of " gain " CJD , the U.S. has hadstrict agricultural regulation in place since the 1990sto keep mad cow - impact gripe out of the food supply . There are alsoinfection control guidelines to keep the contagion of CJDthrough medical function .
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The Hood River County Health Department has not announced which type of CJD is likely implicate in the recent guinea pig , but Elliott separate The Oregonian that they do n’t think septic cattle are the cause . And again , it appears that the three cases are n’t linked to one another , the department noted .
" The risk of exposure of getting CJD is extremely low , " the department ’s statement emphasized . " It does not spread through the melodic phrase , touch , societal contact , or piddle . "
This article is for informational purposes only and is not meant to offer aesculapian advice .
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