CJD test results two weeks away

By REBECCA WALSH AND NZPA

Test results for the man who may have New Zealand's first case of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease are still up to two weeks away.

The 26-year-old farm worker remains in a stable condition in a general ward at Waikato Hospital in Hamilton. Details of his case were released last week in an attempt to dispel rumours of a foot and mouth outbreak.

Yesterday, the Director of Public Health, Dr Colin Tukuitonga, said health officials were waiting for results of two sets of test being carried out in Australia before making any decisions about what course of action to take. The Health Ministry had not sought advice from Britain.

"The risk to public health is minimal. It's not as if we are concerned about spread. It is more of a concern the source of it."

Variant CJD is a fatal brain-wasting disease thought to be caused by eating meat or meat products from cattle infected with mad-cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE). Britain experienced an outbreak of the disease in the 1990s.

Dr Tukuitonga said that if a spinal fluid test was positive it meant the man had sporadic CJD. About three people contract the sporadic form in New Zealand each year.

But doctors were not expecting the tests to indicate sporadic CJD as it generally occurred among people aged 50 to 65.

If a tonsil test was positive for variant CJD, officials would have to "seriously explore" where he might have picked it up. Doctors have warned that the test has high rates of false positives and false negatives.

The man, who has spent most of his life around farms in Taranaki and the Waikato, has never been to Britain, where 48 of the world's 50 known cases of variant CJD occurred. One possibility is that he ate infected food imported before the 1996 ban on risky meat and meat products from Britain.

Meanwhile, Massey University epidemiologist Roger Morris says an outbreak of mad cow disease would decimate the New Zealand economy but the chances of it contaminating the food chain were remote.

"Because of New Zealand's reliance on exports of meat and dairy products, it would be a very serious issue for the industry to manage.

"If we diagnosed a case of BSE, we face major restrictions and it would take us a year to sort that out, and maybe longer."

Professor Morris, director of the Epicentre at Massey, said intensive biosecurity measures were in place to prevent New Zealand cattle from becoming infected.

There was no reason for countries to restrict imports from New Zealand, but officials would have to tread carefully.

The kiwi dollar dropped 1USc against the American dollar on Wednesday night amid rumours of an animal disease outbreak in New Zealand.

Professor Morris is working with the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry to monitor the situation.