Three people in Hood River County have contacted Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease over the span of eight months, an unusual pattern for an incredibly rare disease.

Three people in Hood River County have contacted Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease over the span of eight months, an unusual pattern for an incredibly rare disease.

A small Oregon county has been struck by one of the rarest but scariest ailments known to exist. Health officials in Hood River County have reported an unusual cluster of people coming down with Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, or CJD.

Three residents in the area have contracted CJD over the past eight months, according to the Hood River County Health Department, two of whom are already dead. Local and federal health officials are now investigating the cluster, but they have not identified a link between the cases to date.

While CJD is the most common prion disease, only around 500 new cases of it are estimated to happen in the U.S. annually. This rarity makes three cases showing up so close together in the same relatively small county (roughly 24,000 people live in Hood River) all the weirder.