BBC Thursday, 6 September, 2001, 07:08 GMT 08:08 UK vCJD cases 'on the increase' The final total of deaths could be as high as 140,000

Scientists have reported a sharp increase in the number of cases of vCJD - the human form of "mad cow disease".

They also say that people living in the north of England and Scotland are more than twice as likely to get the disease as those in the south.

The disease has now claimed the lives of more than 100 people in the UK, and scientists say its incidence increased by 20% last year.

Estimates of the final total of cases expected in the UK range from a few hundred to 140,000.

Professor James Ironside, of the vCJD Surveillance Unit at Edinburgh University, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Wednesday it was difficult to tell how the disease would grow in the future.

"Because of the uncertainties associated with the disease, the unknown incubation period, genetic factors that are probably associated with different susceptibility - it makes modelling the future very difficult," he said.

He also said there was no clear explanation for why people in the north should be more susceptible to the disease.

One possibility was that genetic factors meant people in the north were more susceptible to the disease, he said.

Another, which Professor Ironside thought was more likely, was that northerners have had more exposure to the disease, because they were more likely to have eaten more pies and burgers containing low-grade meat.

Mechanically recovered meat

It is impossible to check this theory unless the food industry reveals which of its products contained low-grade meat.

The Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (Seac) has spent five years asking food companies how much "mechanically recovered meat" (MRM) was used in the past, as they believe this type carries the most risk of passing on BSE.

MRM is meat residue which is left on the carcass after all the prime cuts have been removed.

However, Seac says it has been "continually thwarted" in its efforts to extract information from the industry.

But last month the Food Standards Agency launched a new probe to try to extract information from the industry.

Professor Ironside said the origins of vCJD were still a mystery to scientists.

He said he favoured the theory which was that cattle had been fed carcasses of sheep with a mutated form of the disease scrapie.

-- Anonymous, September 06, 2001