National Scrapie Surveillance Programs
Scrapie is a fatal disease that affects the central nervous system of sheep and goats. It is classified as a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE). While the exact cause of scrapie is unknown, it is thought to be associated with the presence of an abnormal protein called a prion.
Other countries, including the USA and Great Britain, are already working to reduce the incidence of scrapie and eventually eradicate it from their flocks. In order to remain competitive and maintain market access, it is in Canada's best interest to increase resistance to scrapie and to establish prevalence of this disease so that it does not become a trade barrier in the future.
The Canadian Food and Inspection Agency (CFIA) and several provincial agricultural ministries have launched a surveillance program to detect scrapie in the national sheep flock and goat herd. The goal of this program is to identify infected animals in Canada to ensure that proper steps can be taken to completely eradicate the disease from our country. General requirements include reporting deads on farm over the age of 12 months and complete brain testing.
Enhanced Scrapie Surveillance
Alberta Lamb Producers has been working with the provincial government for a number of years in developing scrapie surveillance programs to provide international import and export opportunities for producers. Here are details of new Alberta surveillance programs both for producers registered on the National Voluntary Scrapie Flock Certification Program and for producers who wish to submit heads for surveillance sampling.
All questions on the National Voluntary Scrapie Flock Certification Program should be referred to the national scrapie co-ordinator, Courtney Denard, www.scrapiecanada.ca, 1-866-534-1302.
Voluntary Scrapie Flock Certification Program (VSFCP)
The SFCP National Standards were developed by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), in collaboration with the sheep industry, as the basis for Canada’s on-farm, voluntary scrapie control program. It is intended to be a long-term, internationally recognized flock/herd scrapie control program for the sheep and goat industries. This program is unique as a CFIA approved disease control strategy. The CFIA only provides a guiding hand in ensuring that the program retains key requirements to meet international standards. The day-to-day management and verification is placed in the hands of industry.
National Genotyping Survey
This project got underway in early summer 2005. In June 2005, agreements were reached with five laboratories from across the country to analyze blood samples. In late June and July of the same year, invitation letters were mailed to over 900 purebred sheep producers nationwide, informing them of the opportunity to get involved with the project.
By mid-July 2005, blood samples were beginning to be received by the participating laboratories. As samples were received they were forwarded to the national database being developed by the Nova Scotia Agricultural College (NSAC), in Truro, Nova Scotia. Scrapie Canada worked closely with NSAC to develop an extension program to interpret genotype results and help producers use the genotype information when making breeding decisions.
Sample collection was ongoing until December 16, 2008 and the project officially came to an end on March 31, 2009. In total, about 9,300 Canadian purebred sheep were genotype tested through this project. These results were added to the national genotyping database established by the Nova Scotia Agricultural College. Also in this database are genotyping test results from other various provincial genotyping projects.
As of March 31, 2009, the total number of farms and sheep with genotypes in the database was 18,966 sheep from 496 farms.
For more information on Canada’s scrapie programs, or scrapie in general, please visit www.scrapiecanada.ca.