Risk of death from variant Creutzfeld Jacob Disease (vCJD) and CJD in the UK

Clinical bottom line

The chance of dying from variant CJD (associated with spongiform encephalopathy in cattle, or mad cow disease) in the UK is about 1 in 12 million in any one year.

The chance of death from CJD of any cause in any one year is about 1 in 750,000.

Data sources

National Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Surveillance Unit (www.cjd.ed.ac.uk)
UK Government actuaries Department (www.gad.gov.uk/)

What the sources tell us

The population of the UK is 60 million.
The number of deaths from vCJD in the UK rose from none before 1995 to a peak of 28 in 2000. Since 2005 there have been five deaths every year (Figure 1).
In the same period the overall number of cased of CJD rose from about 50 a year to a peak of 108 in 2003, and are running at about 80 per year now. The rise from about 50 to about 80 is most probably because of the greatly increased vigilance for what has always been a rare and difficult to diagnose neurological disease. The bulk of the cases of CJD were sporadic with no known cause, with about 5 to 10 cases with iatrogenic or familial causes.

Figure 1: Deaths from CJD and vCJD every years between 1990 and 2007

Give us the odds

The chance of being diagnosed with and dying from vCJD in any one year is 1 in 12 million.
The chance of death from CJD of any cause in any one year is about 1 in 750,000.

Figure 1: Annual isk of dying of mad cow disease in UK, or plague in the world

Risk Communication Tool (c) John Paling 2000 (www.riskcomm.com)

Comment

These risks have been reasonably constant for the last decade and a half. The intricate details of vCJD and its relationship to BSE are outside the scope of this calculation of risk.