Written question asked by Lord Vinson (Conservative), in the House of Lords. It was answered by Lord Taylor of Holbeach (Conservative) on Wednesday, 28 March 2012.

Agriculture: Sheep Carcasses

Question: To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Taylor of Holbeach on 1 March (WA 363–4), how many tests have been conducted on sheep carcasses to establish any evidence that transmissible spongiform encephalopathy in sheep could directly cause Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease in humans.

Answer: As required by the EU Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSE) Regulation, every year the UK tests some 20,000 healthy slaughtered and fallen sheep aged over 18 months for TSEs. Any sheep which tests positive for the initial rapid test undergoes further discriminatory testing—PrP (prion protein) immuno-histochemistry and Western blotting—to distinguish possible cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) in sheep from those of classical and atypical scrapie. BSE has never been found naturally occurring in sheep. The latest Joint Scientific Opinion from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) (http://www.efsa.europa .eu/en/efsajournal/doc/1945.pdf) concluded that BSE is the only animal TSE for which there is evidence of its being a zoonotic agent and a cause of a form of Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease (CJD) in humans.

Secondary information

Type: Written question
Reference: 16425; 736 c249WA
Session: 2010-12
Related items: Agriculture: Sheep Carcasses
Thursday, 1 March 2012
Written questions
House of Lords
Subjects: Testing Sheep CJD Transmissible encephalopathies
Link: View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk