Rare Disease Scares Amarillo

Reported by: David Maritnez

Friday, Nov 21, 2008 @06:07pm CST

AMARILLO -- It's called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease and the Amarillo Health Department is investigating a suspected case of it.
CJD is a brain disorder that typically affects older people it's considered the human form of Mad Cow Disease, which has some people scared.
But education might clear that up.
Often times people link the two diseases together and that's because of how the disease destroys.
Mad Cow affects a cows central nervous system and it's always fatal.
C.J.D. is also fatal but it affects a humans brain, creating holes similar to a sponge.
There's no cure. And often, the victim's entire life, including their memory, deteriorates rapidly.
According to the Amarillo Public Health Department, there's about ten to eleven confirmed cases in Texas every year.
There's no known cause so health officials can't pinpoint a reason.
We do know only a very small number of people get it from eating beef.
Most people who get the rare disease get it because proteins in the brain changed.
Right now, the City of Amarillo tells us there's no reason for anyone to be scared or concerned about their health.
"We're investigating all of the medical records of the case and we're attempting to confirm that it is that Sporadic CJD. So the differential diagnosis, the signs and symptoms match that definition but we're not gonna be able to know without some confirmation tests," says Matt Richardson of the Amarillo Public Health Department.
As for this suspected case Richardson can't tell us too much about this patient.
All we know is that she lives in the Amarillo area.
It's interesting to note that about three hundred people across the nation come down with CJD every year.
The incubation period for CJD can last anywhere between fourteen weeks to forty years.
Basically that means that someone can have the disease and not know it for a very long time.