New form of BSE could be the cause of human disease
A report published on 17 February claims that a new form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) that has recently been found in Italy might be the cause of some cases of human-brain wasting disease. This new strain, found in two elderly dairy cows, resembles one form of the human disease, sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), raising the possibility that this human disease comes from eating animals. Previously, unlike vCJD, which is known to be caused by eating BSE-infected beef, sporadic CJD was thought to occur spontaneously. 'We don't know if this disease is passed to humans,' said Dr Salvatore Monaco, a neurologist at the G. B. Rossi Polyclinic in Verona, and an author of the study. 'But it is very similar to a subtype that causes sporadic CJD in humans.' However, other scientists caution that more than two contaminated cows will have to be found before it can be concluded that a new form of disease has been discovered. They warn that it may be that the two cows simply caught BSE via a different method of infection. The disease found in the two cows is so different that its discoverers gave it a new name, bovine amyloidotic spongiform encephalopathy, or BASE, because it forms amyloid plaques in the brain. On the positive side, scientists agree that even if BASE is a distinct form of BSE, it is not likely to escape being detected in European abattoirs where all cattle over 30 months old must pass a BSE test before being slaughtered for human consumption. However, if it is a second cattle transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE), it could arise spontaneously in areas with no history of BSE infection. Tests are currently being carried out on mice.
Countries
Italy