Bluetongue spreads despite vaccinations

sea-maid submitted, created time 5 months 1 week (www.newscientist.com)

BLUETONGUE is back. It has survived another winter in northern Europe, and now farmers are vaccinating livestock in a race against the biting midges that carry the virus.

The first cases of the disease, which affects ruminants, began to surface this month, with France so far reporting 260. Most are located along the front line of last year's outbreaks, suggesting that the epidemic is spreading into new territory despite France's compulsory vaccination policy.

In England, voluntary vaccination has been rolled out across the country from the south-east, where bluetongue arrived last year

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The spreads of prion disease through sheep milk

sea-maid submitted, created time 6 months 1 week (www.newscientist.com)

Ewes infected with scrapie, the sheep equivalent of mad cow disease, can transmit the disease to lambs through their milk. Should we be worried? Does BSE spread to calves or even humans in cows' milk? And do mothers with variant Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (vCJD), the human equivalent of BSE, spread it to breastfeeding infants?

And after reading this study, you will find the answer.

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What can we learn from the oral intake of prions by sheep?

BIOBOSS submitted, created time 1 year 9 months (www3.interscience.wiley.com)

The central nervous system is the ultimate target of prions, the agents responsible for fatal neurodegenerative diseases known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs). Now, new data on the initial steps of oral infection have been obtained in sheep. The data were obtained using surgical and biochemical procedures to modulate the efficiency of oral infection and show that, in sheep, the abnormal prion protein (PrP) associated with the infectious agent crosses the intact intestinal barrier at the level of the enterocytes and then passes rapidly into lymph

Submit comment | Blog It | Email It | Keywords: Prion scrapie sheep ingestion vCJD BSE TSE