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Report
No.230707 |
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- Science & Technology - |
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BSE Infection Confirmed from Artificial Experiment at Hokkaido Institute Hokkaido Animal Research Center of Hokkaido prefecture government announced on January 18 that three cattle were confirmed to have been infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) as a result of artificial experimental infection. This was the first successful infection experiment in Japan. Successful experiment is expected to lead to elucidating the hitherto unidentified mechanism of BSE outbreak and would be useful in developing ante-mortem diagnosis of the disease. Hokkaido Animal Research Center launched the experiment in February 2004. It inoculated one-tenth of a gram of BSE pathogen taken from two infected cattle to the brain of 14 two-month old calves. Three of the calves started showing early signs of infection such as off rhythmic walking since around September last year, and they were sent to National Institute of Animal Health (NIAH) at Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture for dissection where they were confirmed to have been infected. It is known that pathogenic agent enough to infect several thousand cattle can be collected from a single infected cattle. The Hokkaido Center, with an eye on development of ante-mortem diagnosis, has been making regular checks of blood and urine of the test calves, but so far could not identify pathogenic agent or changes of ingredients. However, it is hopeful that "if ante-mortem diagnosis could be developed, such a technology will help rank the country as 'free' of infection," and therefore, will continue blood testing etc. Artificial infection has been bringing successful results in the United Kingdom and other countries. It is reported from those experiments that test calves show expression of infection at about 23 months of age when administered the pathogen in the brain as in the case of Hokkaido experiment. The Hokkaido Center is willing to supply blood and organs of infection-confirmed calves to research institutes which wish to obtain them. Some of the remaining 11 calves also show early signs of infection and the Center will send them one after the other to NIAH for confirmation. |
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