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http://europe.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/09/27/italy.vcjd/index.html

Italy vCJD case confirmed

Friday, September 27, 2002 Posted: 1920 GMT

BSE-infected beef has been linked to vCJD cases across Europe

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LONDON, England -- Research published in Britain has confirmed Italy's first case of the human form of mad cow disease.

The case involves a 25-year-old woman who lives in Sicily. She was admitted to a hospital in November after suffering for six months with pain in her back and legs, a progressive disturbance in her walking and unpleasant sensations when her skin was touched.

Italian health authorities announced in February that the fatal brain-wasting condition variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or vCJD, was the suspected diagnosis.

The illness is linked to eating meat from cows infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or mad cow disease.

The human variant of BSE can only be confirmed by examining the brain after death, but Italian specialists say new tests make diagnosis before death more certain.

The woman had a brain scan, and experts in Britain, where the disease is most prevalent, analysed a sample of her tonsils.

British scientists have recently discovered that traces of the infecting protein can be found in the tonsils of people with the disease.

"Tests have confirmed the diagnosis. As neurologists, we are certain," said her doctor, Vincenzo La Bella, a neurologist with the University of Palermo, Sicily.

La Bella reported the diagnosis in the British medical journal The Lancet on Friday.

"In this case, the MRI scan and the analysis of the tonsil biopsy sample were sufficient to make a diagnosis," he wrote.

Italy detected its first case of mad cow disease last year, after the European Union ordered mandatory tests on cattle older than 30 months destined for slaughter.

On Friday, Italy's Health Ministry reported that 73 cows have now tested positive for the disease.

Variant CJD has killed more than 100 people since it emerged in the mid-1990s in England. Most of the deaths have been in Britain, which also experienced a widespread outbreak of BSE cases in cattle.

La Bella reported that the woman had never traveled to Britain or any other country with reported cases of mad cow disease

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