NR ATFD
AU de Koeijer,A.
TI BSE Risk in Europe - Towards freedom of disease?
QU International Conference - Prion 2005: Between fundamentals and society's needs - 19.10.-21.10.2005, Congress Center Düsseldorf - Oral sessions ORAL-08
PT Konferenz-Vortrag
AB
Active control for BSE led to a fast decrease of the infection on most European countries, as can be seen from the active surveillance results. Without active surveillance, risk analysis is needed to assess the risk and prevalence of BSE. So far, the EUs Geographical BSE Risk Assessment (GBR) is the only method that is widely applied and validated, proving its value over the years. It is based on the assessed efficacy of a few key control measures. The present decrease in the number of BSE cases in Western Europe naturally leads to the question if those (expensive) control measures can be relaxed.
The essential measures are the removal of SRMs, hyperbaric rendering and banning MBM in feed (with cross-contamination control). For the EU, relaxing of these controls is a complicated issue because some member states are not yet in the decreasing stage of the epidemic and because cross-contamination risk varies a lot over the member states.
There is one more key tool applied in controlling BSE: the active surveillance, i.e. the testing of all cattle above 30 months of age. This is not a risk control measure as such, but a tool to determine the prevalence and to monitor the effect of the control measures. This is essential to prove freedom of disease, a difficult issue for BSE, due to its low prevalence and the slow progress of an epidemic. The OIE chose a traditional surveillance approach to prove freedom of disease (< 1 case per 100 000). This prevalence level is too high to be acceptable and takes too many years to be practical.
The other option to prove freedom of disease is to use available information on transmission of BSE, accepting a risk assessment study, combining surveillance data and transmission modeling. With these aspects, less surveillance effort is needed to prove that the prevalence is most likely (95% or 99%) below a certain level such as 1 case per million.
IN
Der Autor weist darauf hin, dass die BSE-Fallzahlen zwar nicht überall, aber immerhin in den meisten EU-Staaten massiv sinken, weil die SRM vernichtet sowie Tiermehl sicherer hergestellt und trotzdem nicht mehr verfüttert wurde. Dabei erwähnt er nicht die Tatsache, dass die massive Verschärfung und Ausweitung des Verfütterungsverbotes sowie die Vernichtung der SRM erst im Jahr 2000 kamen und daher ihr Effekt erst an den Geburtsjahrgängen ab 2001 erkennbar sein wird. Immerhin weist er darauf hin, dass eine Lockerung dieser Maßnahmen wegen der noch nicht überall sinkenden BSE-Fallzahlen und des Risikos der Kreuzkontamination problematisch wäre.
Obwohl so auch BSE-Rinder aus der Produktion menschlicher Nahrung heraus gehalten werden, behauptet der Autor, die BSE-Schnelltests bei Schlachtrindern dienten nur der Überwachung und nicht der Risikominderung. Außerdem hält er die Testung für weitgehend ersetzbar durch das Geographical BSE Risk Assessment (GBR).
AD A. de Koeijer, Infectious Diseases, ASG, Wageningen UR, The Netherlands
SP englisch
PO Deutschland