Editorial: A disease too awful to contemplate

A collective shudder goes through this country at the slightest hint of a livestock infection such as mad cow disease. And the man in hospital in Hamilton offers no more than the slightest hint. He is suspected to have contracted variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), which is caused by the same agent that triggers the cow infection bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

That does not mean the man has contracted the rare brain condition or that he contracted it from New Zealand livestock, although the fear is inescapable. vCJD in itself has never caused borders to be closed to meat imports and Britain, Europe and the United States reacted calmly yesterday to New Zealand's announcement. Japan may be different - it has a record of excessive fear of imported food. But the initial signs give hope that New Zealand can avoid a premature panic in major foreign markets.

That calm is the result no doubt of the way in which public health and trade officials conveyed the news in foreign capitals, even if the health authorities were prompted to disclose the suspected case only to scotch a more potent rumour circulating in Britain that New Zealand had suffered an outbreak of foot and mouth disease. The fact that the rumour took a full cent off the dollar's exchange value is a reminder of the devastation that a confirmed case of foot and mouth or BSE could wreak on the economy.

The Reserve Bank estimates that the economy would contract by $10 billion, or 8 per cent of GDP, ending at least 20,000 jobs. It is a chilling prospect and it could happen so easily if the country ever relaxes its biosecurity precautions.

To ensure that no economic damage is done from this case, the medical authorities should waste no time or effort in finding the source of the variant CJD, if indeed they confirm that is the disease this man has.

Yesterday, Waikato Hospital neurologists were cautioning us not to jump to conclusions about it and the national director of public health, Dr Colin Tukuitonga, went so far as to say that "the likelihood this is vCJD is remote". The hospital has sent blood, spinal fluid and tissue for diagnostic tests in Australia and it could be a fortnight before it receives the results. Even then, they might be inconclusive.

Meanwhile, the country must hope that news of a possible vCJD case does not belatedly strike overseas consumers as something more serious than it is. These things can happen and it would be better that medical authorities here could tell us with certainty, and much sooner.

Their first concern has to be the illness of this 26-year-old man and for that reason they are unwilling to do the brain biopsy that gives the only certain diagnosis. They cannot justify a biopsy because there is no specific treatment for a confirmed case. Is it too much to suggest that a biopsy be done in this case for the national interest?

Even without a conclusive diagnosis, biosecurity officials must do their utmost to track the source of a possible vCJD outbreak. They sound confident that it could not have come from locally reared cattle. They say meat and bone feed has been banned here for 50 years, and they test more than 2000 animal brains each year. Imported food is the prime suspect. Perhaps the analysis of imported products could start now as a precaution.

Let's believe, though, that this is probably not vCJD and it is certainly not evidence of a dreaded BSE outbreak. It is a reminder - no more as yet - that this country must remain more vigilant than practically any other against diseases like this.

The country is as dependent as ever on agricultural exports. Its quarantine standards are second to none and incidents such as this should leave us more than happy to face the occasional inconvenience at the border. The consequences of a BSE outbreak, or anything like it, are too awful to contemplate.