Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease cluster in an Australian rural city.
Through the Australian National Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Registry, 6 pathologically confirmed sporadic cases were recognized over a 13-year period in persons who had been long-term residents of a moderate-sized rural city, whereas the expected number was 0.923. An extensive investigation could not find any point-source or case-to-case transmission links. This occurrence is highly statistically significant (p = 0.0027) when viewed in isolation and remains significant (p < 0.02) when only the cases that arose after the cluster was recognized were taken into account. However, a more conservative statistical analysis suggests that such a grouping could have arisen by chance in at least one population group of this size when the whole country is taken into consideration.
Australian National Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Registry and Department of Pathology, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. stevencj@unimelb.edu.au
Steven
S
Collins
Alison
A
Boyd
Ashley
A
Fletcher
John
J
Kaldor
Andrew
A
Hill
Stephen
S
Farish
Catriona
C
McLean
Zahid
Z
Ansari
Margaret
M
Smith
Colin L
CL
Masters
D000368:Aged; D001315:Australia / Q000453:epidemiology; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D007562:Creutzfeldt-Jakob Syndrome / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016012:Poisson Distribution; D012042:Registries / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012424:Rural Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data