The first case of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) in a
Japanese patient was announced by the Japanese Ministry of
Health, Labour and Welfare on 4 February 2005 . The patient, who
first experienced neurological symptoms in December 2001, and
died in December 2004, was male and in his The patient is
reported to have spent approximately one month in the United
Kingdom in 1988, although the exact length of his stay has not
yet been confirmed. The possibility of exposure to the vCJD
infective agent while the patient was in the UK is widely
accepted at present. On 16 September 2004, the Japanese CJD
surveillance panel, in collaboration with the United Kingdom
National CJD surveillance unit (http://www.cjd.ed.ac.uk/)
diagnosed an isolated form of CJD, and confirmed the need to
further observe the developing symptoms. On 3 February 2005, the
CJD sub-committee reported that the characteristic findings of
the post-mortem pathological investigation, which included a
western blot, strongly indicated vCJD. A gene