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Two people die in Spain after contracting "mad cow disease"

07/04/2008

Two people have died in Spain after contracting the human form of the variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), popularly known as "mad cow disease".

The pair, aged 26 and 41, died in the central region of Castilla-Leon, with one of them dying over three months ago and the other dying just last week, reports have claimed.

The health department confirmed the death of the two people, with the Reuters news agency quoting officials as saying they were not the first vCJD deaths in Spain.

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly referred to as "Mad cow disease", is a fatal disease in cattle.

It first emerged in Britain in the 1980s and has since been found in herds of cattle across Europe and the World.

It is believed that the disease is transmitted to humans who eat infected meat.