NR ASAU
AU anonym
QU Pressemeldung Reuters 13. Oktober 1995
IA http://zebu.uoregon.edu/story/cowt1.txt
PT Presseagentur-Bericht
VT
LONDON, Oct 13 (Reuter) - British drug company Proteus International Plc said on Thursday it had pioneered a test for Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or "mad cow disease'', that could eventually determine whether live cattle are infected.
The group said in a statement its new technique had proved 100 percent accurate in confirming previous diagnoses on dead cattle brains and offered the prospect of testing live organs and blood to see whether the disease is present.
There is currently no way of testing live animals to see if they have BSE and no-one knows exactly how much at risk humans are if they eat infected beef or drink milk from diseased cows.
"It's important,'' said Professor Richard Lacey at Leeds University, a leading campaigner on the dangers of BSE.
"It is a breakthrough in that it could lead to control of the problem,'' he told Reuters.
Lacey said he saw no reason why such a test on live organs or blood could not one day be applied to the human form of the degenerative brain disease, known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob.
But Proteus said it was too early to say whether the test might have any human application.
Lacey said for now, the main significance of such a test would be to identify the extent and nature of contamination among live cattle with a view to eliminating affected herds.
British beef is on probation in Europe. Trade has been curbed after Germany tried to ban imports across the 12-nation European Union earlier this year because of widespread panic the meat was tainted and humans were potentially at risk.
Since 1989 the British government has banned human consumption of cattle brains and spinal cords and insists that British beef is perfectly safe to eat.
Lacey said there had been 138,000 confirmed cases of BSE since 1986 in Britain and scientists were now seeing confirmation of their hunch that BSE was being passed from one generation of cattle to another, suggesting it is transmitted by blood. The disease has an incubation period of about five years.
"If we correlate the presence of infectivity in blood with subsequent development of the disease, it means we could identify infected animals early and eliminate them,'' he said.
"It's a major step - it would prevent diseased animals ever entering the food chain.''
Proteus said its dead tissue test, which highlights the mutated protein believed to cause BSE, was easier to use than current procedures.
Business development and marketing manager Jurek Sikorski said the technique offered the prospect of detecting BSE in the liver, kidney and spleen as well as blood of live animals. He said Proteus would soon start a bigger study with a view to developing a diagnostic for use on these tissues and fluids.
That means that Proteus will go beyond merely corroborating diagnoses based on current tests for BSE, as it did in its preliminary trial on 169 dead cattle brains.
A future test could pinpoint BSE before the animal died and diagnose a disease in an animal which current tests might miss.
"Our test has the potential to yield a more definitive diagnosis,'' Sikorski concluded.
Proteus said it was in discussions with several major companies to commercialise its current test, which could be available by 1995. Sikorski said it hoped to have a test for use on live animals on sale by 1996 or 1997.
The group reckons the potential market for a BSE diagnostic for live cattle and carcasses destined for human consumption is more than $100 million a year in Europe alone.
IN Die britische Firma Proteus International Plc hat einen BSE-Test entwickelt, der in den Gehirnen bereits als BSE-positiv ermittelter Rinder in 169 von 169 Fällen das veränderte Prionprotein nachwies. Business development and marketing Manager Jurek Sikorski hofft auf eine Anwendbarkeit auch bei Leber, Nieren, Milz und Blut. Der Test soll ausgiebig auf diese Organe und verschiedene Körperflüssigkeiten angewendet werden und möglicherweise 1996 oder 1997 auf den Markt kommen.
PO Internet
OR Prion-Krankheiten 9