November 23, 2000
The following is a joint statement by the Hospital Authority and the Department of Health in response to media enquiries on a North District Hospital (NDH) patient.
The 45-year-old patient Mr Ng was transferred to North District Hospital on October 16, 2000 from a hospital in the mainland, by then Mr Ng was in unconscious state. According to the patient's relative, the patient was found collapsed in August 2000 with weakness in limbs and slurring in speech.
The clinical symptoms presented by the patient as well as results of various brain tests conducted in the mainland hospital suggested classical Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD).
Patient's condition deteriorated and died on October 28.
No autopsy was required as the cause of death of CJD was supported by his clinical presentations and the computerised axial tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and electroencephalogram (EEG) results.
The Department of Health was notified in accordance with existing reporting mechanism.
CJD is a very rare degenerative brain disease, approximately one case of CJD occurs per one million population per year with a worldwide distribution. The patient who recently died in NDH was clinically diagnosed as classical CJD, which is not new variant CJD. The cause of the majority of CJD remains unknown. In other countries, there are a small number of patients with inherited form of the disease or acquired the disease after using human-derived growth hormone or contaminated neurosurgical instruments. No new variant CJD cases have been reported in Hong Kong.
From April 1996 to now, there have been 18 reported cases of CJD. At present, two patients are still being treated in HA hospitals, their conditions are serious.