title: Kuru: the old epidemic in a new mirror.
abstract: The kuru epidemic lasted almost a century; it started in 1901-1902, reached epidemic proportions in the mid-1950s, and disappeared in the 1990s. Kuru is the prototype member of a group of disorders known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) or prion diseases. Recent data on the genetics and pathogenesis of TSEs contribute to a better understanding of the documented kuru phenomena, and vice versa, observations made during the kuru epidemic are immensely helpful in understanding the epidemic of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease that is currently developing in Europe. The major goal of this review is to identify and illustrate these points.
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, National Institutes of Health, Room 4B37, Bldg 10, 10 Center Drive, Bethesda, MD 20892-1361, USA. goldfarbl@ninds.nih.gov
authors.forename: Lev G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Goldfarb
mesh_terms: D002190:Cannibalism / Q000266:history; D007562:Creutzfeldt-Jakob Syndrome / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000235:genetics / Q000503:physiopathology; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D007729:Kuru / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000235:genetics / Q000266:history / Q000503:physiopathology; D009512:New Guinea / Q000208:ethnology; D011328:Prions / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D011328:Prions