CJD sufferers to hear of new treatment

The British victims of the human form of mad cow disease are waiting to hear if they will be offered a potential treatment for the condition.

The British National CJD Surveillance Unit (CJDSU) is to contact the six individuals to inform them of a new American treatment.

Britain's Department of Health officials have spoken to the team investigating two drugs now given to patients with malaria and psychosis.

The move follows remarkable results from one case study involving a British citizen with variant Creuzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

Rachel Forber, 20, from Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside, was diagnosed with suspected vCJD in June.

She was confined to a wheelchair, could not recognise her parents and given a year to live.

But after 19 days of treatment at the University of California School of Medicine in San Francisco, the former soldier was able to walk unaided, use a knife and fork and complete co-ordination tests which she previously found impossible.

The pioneering research was conducted in the laboratory of Professor Stanley Prusiner, who won the 1997 Nobel prize for medicine for his work on prions - the infectious protein agents thought to cause brain diseases such as BSE and CJD.

A DoH official said each of the remaining British patients would need to judge, with their clinician, whether it was a treatment that could be useful to them.

He said: "The CJDSU will contacting clinicians responsible (for the six sufferers) to inform them of the potential treatment. They will need to discuss whether it is appropriate for them."