Some recollections about kuru in a patient at Rabaul in 1978, and subsequent experiences with prion diseases

Euan M Scrimgeour

doi:10.1098/rstb.2008.4029

Abstract

I first heard about kuru when I was undertaking the six-month full-time Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (DTM&H) course at Edinburgh University in 1970–1971. The Head of the Department of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, the eminent Dr Frederick J. Wright, had visited Papua New Guinea and

Highlights

KURU PATIENT: CLINICAL COURSE AND AUTOPSY I first heard about kuru when I was undertaking the sixmonth full-time Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (DTM&H) course at Edinburgh University in 1970–1971
The brain preserved in dry ice was collected by Dr Michael Alpers, Director of the Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research and transported to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), where subsequent tests confirmed kuru, and led
In 1991, while working in public health in Glasgow, Scotland as the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and variant Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD) epidemic unfolded, I visited an abattoir near Glasgow to observe the procedure for slaughter of cattle

Summary

Introduction

Some recollections about kuru in a patient at Rabaul in 1978, and subsequent experiences with prion diseases Wright, had visited Papua New Guinea and, as was customary for this superb physician and teacher, was able to give the class a first-hand account of a kuru patient.

Results

Conclusion