BRITISH RESEARCH-ERS have developed the “world’s first accurate blood test” for human mad cow disease, or Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
The human form of BSE or mad cow disease was first diagnosed in 1995. The disease, which affects the brain, is believed to have passed from cattle to humans through infected food. It causes personality change, loss of body function, and eventually death.
The researchers based at University College London have developed the test that was able to detect blood spiked with a dilution of vCJD to within one part per ten billion. This means that test is 100,000 times more sensitive than any other method developed so far, Britain’s Medical Research Council said on Thursday.
The blood test could transform the diagnosis and screening of the mostly fatal brain disease.
At present, a firm diagnosis of the disease can usually be made only once serious symptoms of the disease have developed which indicate extensive damage to the brain,” Prof. John Collinge said. Mad cow disease is caused by prions, the infectious proteins that can inhabit a person’s body for up to 50 years before presenting symptoms.