Italy has recorded its first fatality from the human version of mad cow disease.

A 27-year-old woman from Sicily has died in a hospital in the northern city of Milan on Wednesday.

The death, initially reported by friends of the family, was confirmed by Dr Fabrizio Tagliavini, head of the neurology department at Milan's Besta Neurology Institute.

The woman, whose name has not been revealed, was admitted to the institute several months ago where she was treated for variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), the human form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease.

Italy has recorded 104 cases of mad cow disease in cattle since January 1, 2001, when anti-prion tests were made mandatory on
slaughtered animals aged more than 24 months.

Victims of vCJD suffer a steady and irreversible loss of their mental and motor functions as a rogue protein proliferates in their brains.

Doctors are unable to slow or stop the progress of the disease.

Mad cow disease was discovered in Britain in 1986, triggering a slump in beef consumption across Europe and the subsequent slaughter of millions of cows to try to restore consumers' faith in eating beef.

Britain has recorded over 110 cases of vCJD since 1996, linked to beef infected with mad cow disease, and at least 100 people have died.

Source: ABC, 7/8/2003