PORTSMOUTH (AP) -- Officials at a Portsmouth hospital say a woman who may have had a rare degenerative brain disorder has died.

One type of that brain disorder has been linked to eating beef from cattle infected with mad cow disease.

22-year-old woman Aretha Vinson, who had been unconscious at Bon Secours Maryview Medical Center, died Wednesday afternoon.

The Virginia Department of Health said this week that it was investigating the case.

One possibility for her illness was a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, known as vCJD, a rare brain disorder that has been linked to consumption of contaminated beef.

Video: Portsmouth woman dies of mystery illness

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State health officials say there are also other forms of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, known as CJD, that are unrelated to beef consumption.

An autopsy is being done at the University of Virginia.

Her family says she underwent gastric bypass surgery on Jan. 23 and became ill in the following days before slipping into a coma on Friday.

The family says an MRI brain scan showed symptoms consistent with Cruetzfeld-Jakob Disease, a rare fatal illness sometimes contracted from meat tainted with Mad Cow Disease.

The Center's For Disease Control and Prevention says every case linked to Mad Cow Disease involves patients who came across tainted meat in Brtain.

Vinson's family says the young woman had never been to Great Britain.

State health department officials have sent an MRI, or brain scan, to the Centeres for Disease Control and Prevention for analysis. Also, the University of Virginia and the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center will conduct additional tests.

It could take months to receive final results to find out what led to Vinson's death.

(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)