What is worrying now is that other animals and their products which we eat could also harbour the disease in another form which we don't yet know about . BSE infects and kills cats, antelopes, marmosets, elk, kudu, oryx, eland, cheetah, puma, ocelot and even ostriches. In experiments, it infected 7 out of 8 mammals including monkeys, pigs, mice, sheep, goats, and chimpanzees. In four cases, infection developed from eating infectious food rather than from direct injection of infected brain tissue which, of course, gives a more rapid response. We normally have less than 1 in 1 million chance of developing this fatal disease for which there is no cure.
Most cases seem to be passed on through families which have a faulty genetic trait.
The disease destroys brain and nerve tissues. The result is dementia and death. We know of three CJD-like diseases. Kuru is known only from the Fore people of New Guinea and is due to cannibalism. Eating human meat was thought to increase fertility in women.