All the people who have died from vCJD are identical genotype: Met/Met at codon 129. The majority are very young 13 - 29. The supposition is that during the BSE epidemic, some food product -- possibly baby food -- was consumed by a highly susceptible group, either babies or very young children with this genotype, who then came down with the disease 10 - 15 years later.
The number infected presumably was greatly reduced because of the massive destruction of whole flocks, the removal of SRMs (including tonsils, eyes, spinal cord, brains, and the small intestines) , widespread testing. So we should see fewer deaths. There are two related bell curves -- the cattle epidemic and the human epidemic. The latter is chronologically later.
They did a study of 12,000 tonsils and appendices that they have kept anonymously in 2000. The results of that study show that up to 4,000 more people could be asymptomatic carriers or incubating vCJD (a certain percentage of the tonsils and appendices had misfolded prions).
The news is mostly good with respect to trends in vCJD. The tonsil study and the fact that one of the blood recipients was NOT of the Met/Met genotype are somewhat worrisome.
As with cattle and BSE, it appears that humans and vCJD are most susceptible at an early age when the digestive system is immature and has not closed off an entryway (I can find the details if you wish). This is a hypthesis that the facts support and that a growing number of scientists accept.