News from the OIE Animal Health Information Department

Information received at the OIE Headquarters on 12 November 2004 from Dr. Isabelle Chmitelin, Deputy Director General, General Directorate for Food (DGAL),Ministry of Agriculture, Food, Fisheries and Rural Affairs, Paris:

Detection of an infective agent molecularly and biologically compatible with that of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in a goat in France:

Date of the report: 2 November 2004.

The French network for typing strains in cases of scrapie detected within the framework of the European Union surveillance programme has reported the presence, in a goat slaughtered in 2002, of an infective agent molecularly and biologically compatible with the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) agent.

This network of seven French public sector research laboratories in FFrance was set up in 2002. Its aim is to conduct research into the development of analytical methods capable of discriminating between the BSE strain and the natural scrapie strain in small ruminants.

Virtually all the positive isolates obtained from small ruminants with scrapie detected through the various surveillance programmes established in France since 1996 have undergone diagnostic testing. These consist of first-line molecular tests, supplemented for samples considered to be 'atypical' by inoculation into transgenic mice, which is the reference test to distinguish BSE from scrapie.

Scrapie cannot be confirmed until the end of the incubation period in mice - a minimum of six months in the fastest strains of mice. Among these atypical ssamples inoculated into mice, one sample presented suspicious characteristics when the mice had reached the end of the incubation period. The sample came from a goat aged two and a half years when it was slaughtered in 2002. This goat was the only animal affected in its herd of origin, which totalled 600 animals (300 adult goats in production and 300 young goats). The whole herd was culled and all the adult goats were tested at that time, with negative results. All the carcasses, including that of the affected goat, were destroyed.

Experimental studies still need to be carried out to determine the exact nature of the pathogen. The data have also been sent to the Weybridge laboratory in the United Kingdom.
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OIE Animal Health Information Department

Note:

Even though the title of this article is disturbing, the tentative diagnosis is not all that unusual. There are several "atypical" TSE cases reported and under investigation around the world in sheep and goats. Since there are really no "standards" for diagnosing BSE in anything other than a bovine, atypical case tissue is being placed into mice for further diagnostic work.

Source:

Paul Rodgers
Deputy Director of Policy
American Sheep Industry Association
phone: (304) 647-9981
fax: (304) 647-4778
e-mail: prodgers2@earthlink.net