A Turkish Cypriot has been diagnosed with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, commonly known as mad cow disease , prompting the north’s veterinarians’ association to demand “urgent biosecurity measures”.
People can contract mad cow disease by eating beef infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), which itself is caused by infectious proteins called “prions”. The disease causes the brain and spinal cord to become damaged over time and is both incurable and fatal.
