Briton critical in hospital with suspected mad cow disease

A 23-YEAR-OLD British man visiting Hong Kong has been hospitalised in a critical condition with a suspected case of mad cow disease.

The patient, who has not been identified, sought medical treatment in Hong Kong on April 6, when he appeared mentally deranged and showed other psychiatric symptoms, Hong Kong's Hospital Authority said in a statement.

He has since received intestinal surgery and is now critically ill, the statement said.

Tests were inconclusive but doctors suspect the patient has contracted variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease - believed to be contracted by eating animals infected with mad cow disease - based on clinical symptoms, the authority said.

The mass-market Apple Daily newspaper reported that the man was ethnic Chinese, but Hospital Authority spokeswoman May Chan declined to disclose the man's ethnicity.

She said she didn't know the man's hometown in Britain.

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is a degenerative nerve disease in cattle.

Eating contaminated meat has been linked to the fatal variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.