Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

Cruetzfeldt-Jakob disease is a prion protein disease causing a transmissible, subacute, fatal neurodegenerative disease characterized by a spongiform encephalopathy. Though rare, ever since Pruisner described the pathogenesis in 1982, this disease kept the clinicians as well as biologists spellbound, because of its distinct clinical picture and the novel mechanism of transmission. There was a further quantum leap in the interest in the disease with the establishment of its new clinical variant, the so called 'mad cow disease' in the late 1990s and had led to more stringent measures to ensure the quality of cattle-feeds and cattle-derived food products. The sporadic genetic variants, the commonest form of the disease, continue to challenge the genetic scientists. Advances in neuroimaging, cerebrospinal fluid marker proteins and genetic linkage studies now offer excellent diagnostic methods, while advances in therapeutic medicine which use products from cadaveric extracts such as growth hormone for treatment of hypopituitarism, dural grafts for neurosurgical procedures and cornea for transplantation etc. have thrown new challenges in controlling this serious disease.

Bite by a dog under provocation: is it free from risk?

There is a common belief that rabid dogs bite without provocation, hence a dog bite under provocation is free from the risk of rabies. This is not always true as is evident from the case report narrated below. Here in this article, a man of 38 years was bitten by a dog under provocation. He developed rabies 4 months after the bite and subsequently died. Autopsy revealed Negri bodies from the brain tissue.

Intradermal rabies immunization for pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis.

Human diploid cell rabies vaccine and similar tissue culture-produced vaccines are too expensive for widespread use in India, but alternative regimes can reduce the cost of post-exposure treatment by 60%. Multiple-site intradermal injections of tissue culture vaccine have proved effective, economical and safe. As these vaccines are becoming more freely available, the intradermal method can now be used to accelerate the replacement of nervous tissue vaccines.