A Dutch teenager had died of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a human variant of mad cow disease, the local Expatica news service reported on Thursday.

The 16-year-old schoolboy was admitted to hospital in July and died at the end of October, the report said.

But the Health Ministry refused to confirm the report due to its agreements with the victim's family, the report added.

It remains unknown how the boy contracted the disease.

The boy was the second Dutch who had been killed by Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in two years. A 26-year-old woman died in 2005. They both were allegedly infected after eating British beef that was imported into the Netherlands in the 1990s.

The hereditary form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob affects 20 people each year. The variant caused by mad cow disease can develop 20 years after the consumption of infected beef.

The disease, which emerged first in Britain in the 1980s, is fatal and incurable. It is thought to be caused by eating food tainted with material from cattle with bovino spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow disease, a progressive neurological disorder.

Source: Xinhua