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BRITAIN鈥橲 epidemic of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), the human
form of mad cow disease, is likely to be much less severe than initially feared.
A new mathematical model of the epidemic, due to be published in Science,
predicts that there are unlikely to be more than a few thousand deaths in total.
鈥淥ur model suggests the epidemic may peak in the next few years,鈥� says Simon
Cousens at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. vCJD deaths so
far are compatible with infections of up to several million people, he says. But
if numbers are at the high end, the model predicts that the average incubation
period is longer than the human lifespan, so most infected individuals never
develop the disease.