Massachusetts Woman May Have Mad Cow Disease
July 22nd, 2008 | by admin |
Massachusetts maybe home to a patient with the human form of Mad Cow disease.
The female patient is currently in a Cape Cod hospital, and tests are being conducted to determine if she has the disease, otherwise known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
People can contract the disease by eating contaminated meat, and there have been several human cases reported in the US over the last few years.
“It’s a very rare disease,” Dr. Alfred Demaria, the Department of Public Health’s top epidemiologist said. “There’s a lot of things that threaten people every day that are much, much, more common than this.”
The disease is not communicable, meaning that it can not be passed on from person to person.
The identity of the elderly woman is being withheld.
