Translation of "Scrapie agent " (English → French) :

- Methods of analysis, detection and control: The objective is to contribute to the development, improvement, validation and harmonisation of reliable and cost-effective sampling and measurement strategies for chemical contaminants and existing or emerging pathogenic micro-organisms (such as viruses, bacteria, yeasts, fungi, parasites, and new agents of the prion type including development of ante mortem diagnostic tests for BSE and scrapie) so as to controll the safety of the food and feed supply and ensure accurate data for risk ana ...[+++]lysis.

(e) methods of analysis, detection and control of chemical contaminants and existing or emerging pathogenic micro-organisms (such as viruses, bacteria, yeasts, fungi, parasites and new agents of the prion type including development of ante-mortem diagnostic tests for BSE and scrapie).

(a) the production techniques used for making feedingstuffs did not include sterilization and inactivation of the BSE or scrapie agents, and failed to prevent cross-contamination with mammal-derived proteins of all types of meal intended for livestock (the latter, although outlawed for ruminants, were still being used in the production of feedingstuffs for other animal species);

Principal TSE-linked problems tackled under this call : European epidemiology, aimed at ensuring, on a harmonised scale, the identification, comparison and epidemiological surveillance of the TSE diseases, both in humans (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease) and in animals (scrapie, etc.); identification of the agent responsible, with a view to determining its principal characteristics and transmission mechanisms, so as to improve the diagnostic tools available; development of diagnostic tools, using techniques such as magnetic resonance, ...[+++] electroencephalography and use of specific antibodies, etc.; risk assessment, notably with regard to risks associated with the consumption of livestock products and with blood transfusions; therapeutic and preventive strategies, and the examination of the properties of certain families of substances with a view to determining their suitability as therapeutic agents.

These projects were concerned respectively with the isolation and identification of the infective agent; the monitoring of the presence of BSE in cattle brains after negative diagnosis for rabies; the assessment of European rendering systems in order to determine the effectiveness against the scrapie and the BSE agents; the assessment of modifications in the prion protein as a pathogenic mechanism for BSE and related disorders and the characterisation of the nature of the agent.

The paper also makes a useful summary of the state of knowledge in the key areas. The following is a list of areas considered by the group as worthy of research : - research aimed at establishing whether or not BSE has been transmitted to man; - working on the hypothesis that BSE may be transmissible to man, a number of suggestions are put forward aimed at establishing a risk assessment such as work on determining whether multiple dosing is cumulative and an estimation of the utilisation of offal in different human food products prior to the ban and the consumption of those products by individual age groups and socio-economic criteria; - is there infectivity in BSE-infected cattle derived products other than SBO (Specified Bovine Offal) ? ...[+++]; - further research to establish the precise reason or route for maternal transmission of BSE in some cases; - establish if it is possible that BSE originated as a (rare) spontaneous event in cattle and that the BSE agent is different from the scrapie agent; - can BSE be transmitted orally to pigs ?; - research into the development of diagnostic techniques for BSE and CJD; - establish the efficiency of BSE inactivation procedures used in the food and pharmaceutical industry; - certain areas are suggested for research into developing therapeutic treatment for victims of the CJD disease and also into developing a test which would indicate those people susceptible to the disease; - predictive research is also proposed as it has been shown that CJD occurs rarely in individuals with certain genes.