NR AOSU
AU Füzi,M.
TI Does a Vector Transmit Scrapie and Chronic Wasting Disease under Natural Conditions?
QU International Conference - Prion diseases: from basic research to intervention concepts - TSE-Forum, 08.10.-10.10.2003, Gasteig, München - Poster session - BR-27
PT Konferenz-Poster
AB The transmissibility of various prion diseases is diverse under natural conditions. A review of the whole literature related to the epidemiology of prion diseases shows that infection with prions apparently fails to transmit by contact in most species /human, monkey, cattle, mink, cat, rodents/, however, there is strong circumstantial evidence that chronic wasting disease of mule deer and elk spreads by contagion. In addition, the consumption of voided infectious placentae is unlikely to account for all cases of ostensibly contact transmission of scrapie in sheep. It may not be an accident that most researchers investigating the transmissibility of scrapie reported cases of contact transmission if they kept healthy sheep or goats with animals with natural scrapie. In contrast, most scientists working with artificially infected animals failed to observe horizontal spread of the disease. The few papers which are exceptions to this rule have serious flaws either in their designs or in the interpretation of findings. This epidemiological distinction can be explained solely by presuming that a vector capable of transmitting prion infection to exclusively sheep, goat and deer but failing to invade the internal organs even of these animals is responsible for contact transmission. The identification of this vector would considerably advance our understanding of the etiology of prion disease.
AD Miklos Füzi, National Centre for Epidemiology, Hungary
SP englisch
PO Deutschland