Health Dictionary
Reliable, easy-to-read patient information on common medical conditions — written in plain language, free of jargon, and grounded in current evidence. Browse the most frequent diagnoses, understand what they mean for everyday life, and learn which steps and questions help you have a focused conversation with your doctor.
Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy epidemiology and demographics
Introduction
Overview
Overview
These spontaneous disorders in humans are very rare affecting only about one person per million worldwide each year.
Epidemiology
Epidemiology
However, transmissible TSEs can reach epidemic proportions as was seen in the UK BSE outbreak of the 80s and 90s. It is very hard to map the spread of the disease due to the difficulty of identifying individual strains of the prions. This means that if animals start to show the disease after an outbreak on a nearby farm then you cannot show that it is the same strain affecting both, suggesting transmission, or that the second outbreak came from a completely different source.
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]