By NewsDesk @bactiman63
The Chief Veterinary Officer for the Icelandic Food and Veterinary Authority, Dr Sigurborg Daðadóttir reported to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) this week a laboratory confirmed case of scrapie in a single sheep on a farm in Stóra-Ökrar 1 (Brekkukot) in Akrahreppur in Skagafjörður.
The case was confirmed by ELISA and Western Blot testing by the Institute for Experimental Pathology at Keldur, Univeristy of Iceland.
The case was among a farm of 720 animals and was killed and disposed.
In mid-October, a farmer contacted a practicing veterinarian who informed the district veterinarian about a sheep with symptoms of scrapie.
The farm is located in Tröllaskagahólfur and in an area where no scrapie has been detected since 2000.
Scrapie is a chronic and incurable infectious disease of sheep. The disease causes spongy degenerative damage to the brain and spinal cord. Most sheep that show symptoms are 1½-5 years old.
However, there are examples of symptoms in a 7-month-old lamb and a 14-year-old lamb.
The infectious agent is neither a bacterium nor a virus, but a protein, called Prion or PrP, which has changed shape and thus become pathological and has poor resilience, can withstand prolonged boiling and most disinfectants.
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