The Health Ministry was working with public health units and the federal government Clement said. Hotel Dieu staff has been contacting other surgical patients who had been treated since March as a precaution. The brain takes on a sponge-like appearance. Early symptoms include memory problems, mood changes and lack of co-ordination. The disease progresses to shakiness and dementia .
Victims are eventually unable to move or speak.
Two patients died at a Colorado hospital this year from Creutzfeldt-Jakob. The disease can be contracted though tainted surgical instruments. A separate form of the disease has been linked directly to eating meat from cattle infected with mad-cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Nearly 100 people in Europe have died of the disease since 1995. Disease specialists say it is not contagious in the traditional way.