A 15 year old girl from Glasgow is suffering from a new strain of Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (CJD), and one doctor says she contracted it from beefburgers, BBC television reported last night.
If the diagnosis is correct, the unnamed girl would be the youngest person ever known to have contracted CJD, the human equivalent of BSE, or mad cow disease.
Professor Peter Behan of Glasgow's Southern General Hospital, where the girl is being treated, told Newsnight: "This girl has a few months to live in my opinion. She has BSE pattern CJD and picked it up through hamburgers."
The girl was admitted to the hospital a week ago after neurological problems. The Southern" General said last night Prof Behan believed she had CJD, but this had yet to be confirmed.
Doctors at Guy's Hospital in7, London also confirmed yesterday that a 29 year old man was suffering from the disease.
One of the hallmarks of the new strain of CJD - which has been inconclusively linked to bovine spongiform encephalopathy - is that it claims victims who are unusually young. The 10 cases confirmed previously had an average age of 27 1/2 years, whereas people with CJD are normally over 63.