BOVINE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY IN GERMANY

Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) has been described as an epidem ic central nervous disorder in cattle from the United Kingdom. The dis ease is thought to have emerged by an interspecies transmission of the scrapie agent of sheep to cattle, after feeding scrapie-contaminated meat and bone meal(MBM). The disease has caused substantial economic l osses for the British cattle industry. Because of strict veterinary re gulations for the import of adult British cattle by the European Union and for MBM by most of the member states the spread of BSE to contine ntal Europe could be efficiently controlled, and only few cases have b een described outside the UK. Here we report the first German case of BSE diagnosed in a Scottish Highland cow. The affected cow was importe d into Germany before the import ban for cattle from the UK was implem ented. BSE was confirmed by histopathology, immunohistochemistry, anim al experiments, immunoblotting and by electron microscopic detection o f scrapie-associated fibrils (SAFs).