Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. It is caused by a prion, which is neither a virus nor a bacteria, and technically, is not "alive". Other prion diseases, in animals, there is a disease of cattle called BSE or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (commonly called mad cow disease), in sheep there is "scrapie" and in humans, there is GerstmannSträusslerScheinker syndrome (GSS), fatal familial insomnia (FFI) and kuru-kuru in humans in Papua New Guinea. The most common means of infection is through intake or transplant of infected tissue in the body. The ingestion of infected central nervous system tissue (brain and spinal cord) is the way in which kuru-kuru was transmitted, when Papua New Guinea natives consumed the flesh and brains of dead relatives. There is a variant form which is caused by medical procedures such as corneal transplant from another person, and bone grafting from another donor (in which the donor is infected or contaminated with the altered prions).

There is no known cure. Although it is thought to have a long incubation period, as much as 50 years,
once symptoms arise, typically, people are dead within one year.

ONE MISTAKE in the video is that I said "Don't be a vampire and don't eat brains" and of course, Vampires do not eat brains, but Zombies do (in the movies), so, Don't be a Zombie and don't eat brains would be a better caveat.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• CreutzfeldtJakob
• prion
• mad cow disease
• nervous system
• CJD
• fatal familial insomnia
• kuru in humans