Presseinformation: German Veterinary Institute Calls For More Efficient Methods To Eliminate BSE

Nr. 288/2003 - 20.11.2003

Living Test Identifies At-Risk Cattle
(pug) In view of the recent detection of new variants of BSE in very young cattle in France and Japan, which are not detected by the current testing regimens, the chairman of the Institute of Veterinary Medicine University of Göttingen, Prof. Dr. Dr. Bertram Brenig calls for more efficient methods to identify at-risk cattle. In latest issue of the "New Food Magazine" Prof. Brenig introduces a blood test for living cattle, developed at his institute, which is capable of identifying animals at risk at a younger age. "A simple blood sample is sufficient to detect nucleic acids in so called 'microvesicles,' which are significantly associated with the risk of developing BSE," Prof. Brenig explains the procedure, which is covered by US patents.
The official screening limit of 30 months for the EU and 24 months for Germany, the age after which slaughtered cattle are currently tested for BSE characteristic prion deposits in the brain, does not ensure the security of consumers in view of the new information that recently came to light in France and Japan, according to Prof. Brenig. These cases developed BSE at an earlier age. The currently approved less sensitive test procedures are capable of diagnosing the disease only after a high accumulation of prion protein in the brain tissue. Although Prof. Brenig agrees that the current policy of culling all cattle of an affected cohort is efficient, he thinks this is not a successful future strategy. In the European Union, a policy has been created to cull (i.e., remove from the human food chain) cohorts of cows in which a BSE case occurred. Cohorts are defined as all animals born and/or raised in the same herd as a confirmed BSE or prion positive case within 12 months before and after the date of birth of the BSE index case.
Prof. Bertram Brenig said, "According to our recent findings, I believe we now have the technology to aggressively and quickly lower the population risk of BSE – if we apply this concept strictly and consistently. We will know that this plan is working within one to two years if the number of prion positive cases at slaughter houses is drastically reduced." Hereby the scientist proposes utilizing a concept already established to eliminate scrapie in sheep, which belongs to the same disease group. The test detects abnormal nucleic acid patterns in serum of BSE cohort animals. Prof. Brenig anticipates starting the program in the first quarter of next year through his licensed facility at the Institute of Veterinary Medicine in Göttingen that currently performs prion tests on slaughtered cattle.
BSE was recognized as an urgent public health concern in 1996 when young Britons were diagnosed with what appeared to be a new form of a familial illness of older age, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD). British scientists linked the development of this "variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease" (vCJD) to exposure to and/or consumption of BSE cattle. BSE is a progressive, invariably fatal neurodegenerative disease in cattle. BSE is one type of "transmissible spongiform encephalopathy" (TSE) disease. Scrapie, which has been observed in British sheep for more than 250 years, is another TSE disease with similar signs and symptoms. Current programs in the European Union and the U.S. are designed to eliminate scrapie by using genetic tests to identify sheep at risk for scrapie, and preventing those from breeding, thus achieving herds with minimal risk for this disease. Like these scrapie programs, a genetic assessment of the risk for BSE in cattle is now possible using the living test.
Contact Information:
Prof. Dr. Dr. Bertram Brenig
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Fakultät für Agrarwissenschaften
Tierärztliches Institut
Groner Landstraße 2, 37073 Göttingen
Telefon (0551) 39-3383, Fax (0551) 39-3392
e-mail: bbrenig@gwdg.de
Internet: www.tieraerztliches-institut.uni-goettingen.de