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Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease kills two in Colorado
DENVER
(March 23, 2001 8:20 p.m. EST)
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, an illness similar to mad cow disease, claimed the
lives of two people at a Colorado hospital this year, and there is concern
other patients may have been exposed to the disease, a hospital spokeswoman
said Friday.
It wasn't immediately known when the patients died at Exempla St. Joseph
Hospital, spokeswoman Kathleen Ferguson said. But she said at least six other
patients may have been exposed to Creutzfeldt-Jakob through surgical
instruments used while treating the two patients who died.
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, or CJD, attacks the brain, killing cells and
creating gaps in tissue. The brain takes on a sponge-like appearance.
Early symptoms include memory problems, mood changes and lack of
coordination. The disease progresses to shakiness and dementia. Victims are
eventually unable to move or speak.
A separate form of the disease has been linked directly to eating meat from
cattle infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease.
Nearly 100 people in Europe have died of the disease since 1995.
About two cases of CJD are reported in Colorado every year, said Cindy
Parmenter of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
"We had four in 2000 and two or three in years before that," Parmenter said.
"It usually happens in people 60 and older. It's not totally unusual."
