British scientists announced yesterday that individuals could be infected with a variant of mad cow disease in humans for over 50 years without showing symptoms.
This suggests that the potential scale of a mad cow disease pandemic in humans may have been underestimated. So far, approximately 160 people globally have been diagnosed with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), a condition that causes brain damage in humans due to consuming infected beef.
Fatal cases have been recorded in several countries. British researchers believe that the incubation period for vCJD could be longer because the transmission of the disease from cattle to humans may last longer within the same species. Prior to this study, scientists thought that the incubation period for vCJD was only around 20 years.
K.H
