There will be no epidemic of the human form of mad cow disease in Britain, despite fears that the worst is yet to come, an expert said yesterday.

We are "highly unlikely" to see a resurgence in the fatal brain condition, according to Professor Bob Will, director of the National CJD Surveillance Unit, who was speaking at a medical conference in Edinburgh.

So far, 166 people in the UK have been diagnosed with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), caused by eating meat infected with the cattle disease BSE in the 1980s and 1990s.

However, many thousands more may be infected but showing no symptoms.

Fears that a new "outbreak" of cases and deaths in the next 30 years were heightened in June 2006, by scientists from University College London.

They proposed that victims of vCJD in the early 1990s were a minority who have unusually short incubation periods for BSE, due to their genetic make-up.

This means that there may be many more victims whose symptoms may not surface for up to 50 years said the team.

The estimate was based on studies of kuru, a similar disease in Papua New Guinea.

But yesterday, Mr Will told the Prion 2007 conference that the chances of a second major outbreak are "unlikely".

"I think the concern that we are waiting a massive outbreak of vCJD due to BSE exposure is receding," he said.

Scotland and the north of England have been worst hit by vCJD, which was first identified in 1996.

Scotland has seen 4.12 cases per million people, compared with 2.8 cases per million in the south-east of England.

Patients with vCJD develop brain damage which eventually leads to death.

The disease spreads to the brain in tiny proteins called prions, which are extremely difficult to destroy using normal methods.

The disease could eventually become endemic in Britain by spreading from person to person, the conference heard earlier this week.