For the fourth time in U.S. history, an American death has been linked to mad cow disease.

On Thursday, the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that an unidentified Texas hospital patient died from mad cow disease.

A spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) and CDC declined to provide details about the victim's location, gender, identity or time of death. However, a press release issued by the CDC stated that the victim spent extensive time traveling to Europe and the Middle East. Likewise, officials believed the three other victims of the disease also caught the infection outside of the U.S., reports My San Antonio.

The DSHS assured Texans that "there are no Texas public health concerns or threats associated with this case," reports CNN.

"The confirmation was made when laboratory results from an autopsy of the patient's brain tested positive for variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD)," the CDC said in a release.

"First described in 1996 in the United Kingdom, variant CJD is a rare, degenerative, fatal brain disorder in humans. It is believed to be caused by consumption of products from cows with the disease bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE, or "mad cow" disease)," said the CDC.

Across the globe, there have been over 220 variant CJD patients reports, with a majority of them--177 cases--taking place in the United Kingdom and 27 cases in France, according to the CDC.

The pres release also states that: "CDC assisted the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS)'s investigation of this case and will continue to help confirm further details of the patient's history, including the potential source of infection.

"A classic form of CJD, which is not caused by the BSE agent, occurs worldwide, including in the United States. Annually, for every 1 million people in the United States, 1 to 2 develops classic CJD. More information about variant CJD, including how it differs from classic CJD, is available in the Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease Fact Sheet."