The first probable human case of mad cow disease in Taiwan was listed posthumously on Saturday, following the death in May of a man who had symptoms of the fatal brain-wasting illness.
The listing was made after officials and experts on a Department of Health (DOH) panel on Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) held a meeting to determine whether the man had died from the disease as the result of eating infected beef.
“We believe it is very likely that the man who died in May this year contracted the disease during his stay in the United Kingdom,” the DOH said in a press statement. “We cannot rule out the possibility that he ate infected beef during that time.”
Scientists believe that many years after eating cattle infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, humans can develop symptoms of new variant CJD (vCJD), also known as human mad cow disease.
The 36-year-old man had lived in the UK between 1989 and 1997, when mad cow disease was at its peak in that country. He began to show vCJD symptoms, including memory loss and hypersomnia, in 2008. Doctors reported the case to the Centers for Disease Control in March last year.
As his family refused to give doctors permission to perform an autopsy, the department could not list the patient as a confirmed case of vCJD. His body has since been cremated.
Though the cause of death could not be determined by means of an autopsy, it was an extremely likely case of vCJD, based on the man’s symptoms, travel history and the results of magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalograms, the DOH said.
According to the CJD advisory panel, it was unlikely that the patient contracted the disease in Taiwan.
“His death could be counted as an imported case of vCJD and unlikely to pose any threat to Taiwan’s disease control network,” the DOH statement said.
Citing its tracking records, the DOH said the man had donated blood to two patients 10 years ago.
“Neither of them has contracted the disease,” the statement said, adding that precautionary measures had been taken to prevent any spread of the disease during the time the man was hospitalized in Taiwan.
The WHO says CJD is a fatal human degenerative condition characterized by progressive brain dysfunction and is categorized into four forms — sporadic, familial, iatrogenic and variant.
The UK Department of Health has said vCJD differs from CJD in that the former is more likely to strike younger people.
Since 1997 when the DOH set up a CJD reporting and monitoring system, 436 suspected CJD or vCJD cases have been reported in Taiwan, DOH figures show. Of that number, 246 were listed as possible or extremely possible cases of sporadic or familial forms of CJD, five were confirmed as traditional forms of CJD and one was listed as probable vCJD, DOH tallies showed.
The others were ruled out as possible cases of CJD.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
The first tropical storm of the year in the western North Pacific, Wutip (蝴蝶), has formed over the South China Sea and is expected to move toward Hainan Island off southern China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. The agency said a tropical depression over waters near the Paracel and Zhongsha islands strengthened into a tropical storm this morning. The storm had maximum sustained winds near its center of 64.8kph, with peak gusts reaching 90kph, it said. Winds at Beaufort scale level 7 — ranging from 50kph to 61.5kph — extended up to 80km from the center, it added. Forecaster Kuan Hsin-ping
COMMITMENTS: The company had a relatively low renewable ratio at 56 percent and did not have any goal to achieve 100 percent renewable energy, the report said Pegatron Corp ranked the lowest among five major final assembly suppliers in progressing toward Apple Inc’s commitment to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030, a Greenpeace East Asia report said yesterday. While Apple has set the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy across its entire business, supply chain and product lifecycle by 2030, carbon emissions from electronics manufacturing are rising globally due to increased energy consumption, it said. Given that carbon emissions from its supply chain accounted for more than half of its total emissions last year, Greenpeace East Asia evaluated the green transition performance of Apple’s five largest final
RSS