Current status of bovine spongiform encephalopathy - A review

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) is a fatal brain disease of cattle which is presumed to have originated from feeding meat and bone meal (MBM) manufactured from rendered scrapie-infected sheep. More than 170,000 cases of BSE have been identified in UK cattle since it was specifically diagnosed in 1986. Most are in dairy herds. This paper reviews the background of the disease, changes in rendering in the United Kingdom which appear to have led to the development of BSE in cattle, characteristics of the disease, the disease-causing agent (prions), related prion diseases in other species, the impact of genetics on prion disease, prion strains, species barriers to transmission, risk of Creutzfeld-Jakob disease to humans, inactivating prion infectivity, and tallow and gelatin production and safety. Efforts at controlling the disease in the United Kingdom and preventing the disease in the United States are also discussed.