vCJD risk in the Republic of Ireland

We estimate the total future number of clinical cases of vCJD using an established mathematical model, and based on infectivity of bovine tissue calculated from UK data and on the relative exposure to BSE contaminated meat.We estimate 1 future clinical case (95% CI 0 – 15) of vCJD in the Republic of Ireland. Irish exposure is from BSE infected indigenous beef products and from imported UK beef products. Additionally, 2.5% of the Irish population was exposed to UK beef through residing in the UK during the 'at-risk' period. The relative proportion of risk attributable to each of these three exposures individually is 2:2:1 respectively.The low numbers of future vCJD cases estimated in this study is reassuring for the Irish population and for other countries with a similar level of BSE exposure.Public faith in the worldwide scientific community suffered significantly after the announcement in 1996 that a new variant form of CJD was affecting the British public [1]. This almost certainly arose as a consequence of eating BSE-infected beef [1-4]. Entry of an estimated 818,000 cattle into the human food chain in Great Britain [5,6] gave rise to concern that a significant proportion of the population may have been exposed to contaminated material. Initial estimates of the potential size of any vCJD epidemic were hampered by lack of knowledge of both the incubation period distribution and the infectiousness of BSE-infected cattle to humans (the species barrier) [7]. Uncertainties regarding these two key parameters resulted in very high initial estimates for the upper limit of any potential epidemic size [7]. As the years progressed, and the exponential rise in cases was not seen, it became possible to reduce the estimates for upper limits of any potential epidemic from millions in 1998[7], to 136,000 in 2000 [8], to 7000 in 2002 [9]. The most recent analysis of the data from vCJD deaths from the end of 2002 has shown that the epidemic in the UK has almost certainly peaked. T