LONDON - Just
days after her plight was made public, Zoe Jeffries, the British
teen who contracted Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, has died. Zoe,
whose mother believes her daughter became infected from eating
hamburgers, died Saturday.
As, British
officials released their report on the mad cow disease crisis
last week, Zoe's family allowed TV cameras into their home to
record her plight.
The redheaded
teen was seen lying motionless in bed, held by her mother. She
had been suffering from the disease, an infection that produces
microscopic holes in the brain, for more than two years.
Zoe began
showing symptoms of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human form
of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, in May 1998.
Her mother
likens the girl's death to murder, saying it's like someone had
stuck a knife in Zoe's body.
The British
government has promised millions of dollars in compensation for
families like the Jeffries.
More than
80 people have now died from the brain-wasting disease in Britain
and computer predictions show up to 6,000 people were infected
between 1980 and 1996.
Until now,
most of the known victims have been young people from 12 years
old upwards, with only a handful of deaths among more mature people
aged up to 55.
BSE was first
identified in 1986, but scientists believe it originated in the
1970s from a single cow or other animal that became ill as the
result of a gene mutation.
The epidemic
developed when new farming practices allowed cattle feed to contain
ground cow remains, a practice that has been banned since 1996.
The feed contained pieces of infected cows.
As a result
of the outbreak in Britain, Canadian blood banks have refused
donations from people who lived in or visited Britain between
1980 and 1996. No cases of BSE have ever been found in domestic
Canadian cattle.
About 180,000
cattle were affected in Britain and another 200 cases were reported
in Portugal. Smaller levels of infection were also recorded in
Ireland, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, France, Denmark
and Switzerland.
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