Italy denies report that man died of mad cow disease

ROME (Reuters) -- Italy's health ministry denied a report Friday that a man in his seventies had died from the human variant of mad cow disease (BSE).

"The man died from a form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) not linked to the agent responsible for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)," a ministry spokesman told Reuters.

Il Gazzettino newspaper, based in northeast Italy, reported on Friday that the man had died from the human form of mad cow disease in the city of Padua.

Incidence of CJD -- a degenerative and fatal brain disease -- predates the BSE crisis. A new kind of CJD, known as new variant CJD, is thought to have evolved in humans through eating meat infected with mad cow disease.

European beef sales plunged in the late 1990s after Britain announced the discovery of a likely link between mad cow disease and CJD.

So far, only two confirmed cases of mad cow disease were detected in Italy in 1994, involving cows imported to Sicily, officials said. Both animals were destroyed.

In January 1998, the health ministry denied media reports that a 53-year-old woman had died from the human variant of BSE.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For more Europe news, myCNN.com will bring you news from the areas and subjects you select.

See related sites about Europe

Note: Pages will open in a new browser window

External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.