Experts publish risk assessment for sheep potentially infected with BSE
The scientific steering committee (SSC) advising the European Commission on BSE related issues has published a pre-emptive assessment of the risk to human health if the presence of BSE were to be found in sheep under domestic conditions. 'The scientists consider that at the current stage there is insufficient information to draw definite conclusions on the potential risk to the human population' reports the Commission. There is currently no evidence to confirm that BSE is present in sheep and goats, according to the scientists, although they add that knowledge in this area is very limited and adequate testing methods and monitoring to confirm a diagnosis are not available. 'It is therefore necessary to start collecting the information required for assessing the likely prevalence of TSE in sheep,' says the Commission. The SSC has therefore developed three scenarios of the potential risk and how to deal with it. 'BSE has to date not been found in sheep under field conditions. Laboratory experiment have however demonstrated that BSE can be transmitted to certain genotypes of sheep and goat,' it continues. '...It is likely that some specific groups of sheep and goats may have been fed meat and bone meal that was possibly BSE contaminated.' The SSC therefore believes it must assume that BSE could have been introduced into parts of the EU sheep and goat population. Now it is underlining the need to start collecting the information needed to assess the prevalence of BSE in sheep in a country or region. 'The scientists notably point to the need for better and more intensive surveillance of sheep flocks, for developing rapid tests which can distinguish BSE in sheep from scrapie, for introducing a system of individual identification of sheep and for certifying the TSE-status of small ruminant flocks,' reports the Commission. As a precautionary measure, Community legislation already imposes the removal of specific risk material (including the skull, brain, eyes, tonsils and spinal cord) of sheep and goat from the food and feed chain in the whole of the EU since October 2000. 'In case BSE would be confirmed in sheep or goats, strict eradication measures would have to be applied with the entry into force of the new European Parliament and Council regulation on the eradication, prevention and control of Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, expected to come into effect on July 1 2001,' says the Commission.