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- Researchers believe that five people have died from this disease.
- A leaked memo from health officials asked doctors to watch for symptoms of brain diseases.
- This unknown brain disease causes hallucinations, memory loss, spasms, muscle atrophy, and tooth breakage.
- For more articles, visit www.BusinessInsider.co.za.
At least 43 people in the Canadian province of New Brunswick have contracted an unknown brain disease that causes spasms, memory loss and hallucinations, and doctors are stumped.
Public health officials believe that five people in the so-called “group” have died from this disease since the first case was detected in 2015.
“We have not seen in the last 20 years a cluster of diagnostic resistant neurological diseases like this,” Michael Coulthart, head of Canada’s CJD surveillance network, told The Guardian.
The disease came to light this month, when Radio-Canada and CBC seized a leaked memo, sent by the province’s public health agency to local doctors.
The memo told doctors to watch out for patients who have symptoms of the rare brain disorder Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease – blurred vision, hallucinations, or disorientation – but the tests rule out CJD.
The patients first entered with spasms, then they developed drooling and tooth breakage.
Dr. Alier Marrero, a neurologist leading the New Brunswick research, said patients came first with pains, spasms and changes in behavior. However, because these symptoms are related to a number of health conditions, it was not much of a concern.
Symptoms progressed to impaired cognitive abilities, muscle atrophy, drooling, and tooth breakage over the next 18 to 36 months. Some of those patients also had disturbing hallucinations, like insects crawling on their skin.
Marrero performed a series of tests – brain imaging, lumbar punctures, and toxicology tests – to make sure the brain disease was not a known neurodegenerative disorder.
Researchers seek answers
Researchers are collaborating with different national groups and various health experts to find out what it is and how it is produced, including studying the local environment.
Valerie Sim, a neurodegenerative disease researcher at the University of Alberta, told The Guardian that it is unusual for a brain disease to have such a wide variety of common symptoms. There would normally be a few key signs.
Overall, Sim said, “there is not enough information yet” to draw conclusions.
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