To prevent new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, attention must be paid to reducing risk factors.
Behavioral risk factors
- Ingestion of infected food-beef and beef derived products.
Prevention factors
- Genetic factors:
- Genetic risk reduction depending on gene polymorphisms:
- Genes/SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphism):
- Gene: PRNP
- SNP: rs1799990 in gene PRNP
- Allele constellation: AA (getting nvCJD is possible) (40% of cases in the population).
- Allele constellation: AG (getting nvCJD is possible but very unlikely) [methionine/valine heterozygous].
- Allele constellation: GG (resistant to nvCJD).
- Genes/SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphism):
- Genetic risk reduction depending on gene polymorphisms:
Note: All nCJD patients documented to date (approximately 230 worldwide) have been homozygous for methionine. Now, for the first time after a long incubation period (time from infection to onset of disease), a sick person with methionine/valine has emerged.
To prevent the iatrogenic form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, care must be taken to reduce risk factors.
Other risk factors
- Transmission from infected body donations or infected surgical instrumentation.
- Transmission through blood and blood products
