Families of vCJD victims are to receive payments of up to �95,000 before Christmas as part of a compensation package.

Health Secretary Alan Milburn has already unveiled a �55m scheme to compensate relatives of those who died from the variant illness.

They have already been handed a �25,000 interim payment, but now will receive another sum while the final distribution of the money is agreed.

So far there have been 113 cases of definite or probable vCJD in the UK.

It is believed that they contracted the disease through eating brain or spinal tissue from cows infected with the bovine equivalent, BSE.

A trust has been set up to administer the �55m, which must cover not only the one hundred plus cases so far, but also any more cases which may arise in the future.

Unsure future

At the moment it is unclear how many of these there are likely to be - estimates range from a few hundred to well over 100,000.

Many of the victims have been young people, but there are still concerns that the disease may have a long incubation period, and that thousands of others may be harbouring it.

A Department of Health spokeswoman said on Wednesday: "Families and their representatives are today meeting with the new chairman of the trust, Sir Robert Owen, to get a feel of each other's point of view and discuss the way forward."

Public concern over vCJD remains high - earlier this week the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, issued an urgent release after two vCJD cases turned out to have been immunised against polio from the same batch of oral vaccine.

Small risks

Health experts say that the risk posed by the oral vaccine were and are "incalculably small".

There is still no treatment for vCJD - the disease, which causes progressive destruction of brain tissue, is invariably fatal.