Commission approves new BSE testts

[reader (the Second)]

The European Commission today approved seven new rapid BSE tests :

CediTect BSE test,
Enfer TSE Kit version 2.0,
IDEXX HerdChek BSE Antigen Test Kit (EIA),
Institut Pourquier Speed'it BSE,
Prionics Check PrioSTRIP,
Roboscreen Beta Prion BSE EIA Test Kit,
Roche Applied Science PrionScreen.

This means that there are now a total of 12 tests that can be used to monitor BSE, which considerably opens up competition in this field. Following a laboratory evaluation carried out by the Commission and subsequent field trials carried out by the test producers under the supervision of the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) recommended that the seven new tests should be approved for use. The tests are designed to detect BSE in brain material collected from animals at the slaughterhouse or which have died on the farm.

Until now, tests designed to detect BSE in live animals have not been evaluated. In the EU all healthy bovine cattle slaughtered at an age above 30 months and all fallen stock above 24 months have to be tested for BSE, with some derogations for some countries. The five previously approved tests can also be used to check for TSE in sheep and goats. Formal evaluations of additional tests for this purpose are ongoing.

[Kato]

Competition can only make it more affordable. Good news.

[reader (the Second)]

Also, more sensitive tests have just been announced, meaning that they can find BSE more reliably and possibly even in live animals before it is detectable by brain autospy. I'm not an expert but I know that in the lab, animals are infectious before they are symptomatic and that they found PrPSc (bad prion) in the spleen (not even the CNS) of one of the vCJD victim transfusion recipients -- and this person was asymptomatic. They don't know if the person would have become symptomatic but they assume that these asymptomatic people, like asymptomatic cattle UTM and negative may be infectious.