Most UK cases of vCJD are being detected, experts tell MPs

Very few cases of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) are missed by doctors, experts have told MPs. However, the precise number of people with the degenerative brain disease is still very difficult to determine, as there is no test for it.

The disease, which is sometimes called the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), emerged after widespread exposure to BSE prions in the late 1980s and early 1990s through contaminated meat products in the food chain.

A study published in the BMJ1 last October estimated that 1 in 2000 people in the United Kingdom carried vCJD proteins, although only 177 clinical cases of vCJD have occurred so far in the UK.

The House …