Pressure intensifies on UK to increase vCJD testing
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
UK spongiform encephalopathy experts have quantified in terms of incidence levels their growing concerns that one or more waves of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) may yet arise as a result of new patterns of genetic susceptibility. But the main implication of the development is the increased urgency of developing a diagnostic to screen for the disease in asymptomatic carriers, given that, instead of the risk of infectivity tailing off, there could be a significant additional proportion of carriers in the population.