Kuru (disease) - Transmission

Transmission

In 1961 Australian Michael Alpers conducted extensive field studies among the Fore, accompanied by anthropologist Shirley Lindenbaum. Their historical research suggested that the epidemic may have originated around 1900 from a single individual who lived on the edge of Fore territory, who is thought to have spontaneously developed some form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD). Alpers and Lindenbaum's research conclusively demonstrated that kuru spread easily and rapidly in the Fore people due to their endocannibalistic funeral practices, in which relatives consumed the bodies of the deceased to return the "life force" of the deceased to the hamlet, a Fore societal subunit. The dysmorphism evident in the infection rates—kuru was 8 to 9 times more prevalent in women and children than in men at its peak—is because while the men of the village took the choice cuts, the women and children would eat the rest of the body including the brain, where the prion particles were particularly concentrated. There is also the strong possibility that it was passed on to women and children more easily because they took on the task of cleaning relatives after death and may have had open sores and cuts on their hands. Although ingestion itself of the prion particles can lead to the disease, there was a high degree of transmission if the prion particles could reach the subcutaneous tissue. With elimination of cannibalism because of Australian colonial law enforcement and the local Christian missionaries' efforts, Alpers' research showed that Kuru was already declining among the Fore by the mid‑1960s, although cases continued to appear for several more decades, and the last sufferer died in 2005. However, the mean incubation period of the disease is 14 years and cases were reported with latencies of 40 years or more for those who were most genetically resilient.