Risk of oral infection with bovine spongiform encephalopathy agent in primates.

• Lasmezas CI,
• Comoy E,
• Hawkins S,
• Herzog C,
• Mouthon F,
• Konold T,
• Auvre F,
• Correia E,
• Lescoutra-Etchegaray N,
• Sales N,
• Wells G,
• Brown P,
• Deslys JP.

Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique/Direction des Sciences du Vivant/Department de Recherche Medicale, 18 Route du Panorama, 92265 Fontenay-aux-Roses, France.

The uncertain extent of human exposure to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE)--which can lead to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD)--is compounded by incomplete knowledge about the efficiency of oral infection and the magnitude of any bovine-to-human biological barrier to transmission. We therefore investigated oral transmission of BSE to non-human primates. We gave two macaques a 5 g oral dose of brain homogenate from a BSE-infected cow. One macaque developed vCJD-like neurological disease 60 months after exposure, whereas the other remained free of disease at 76 months. On the basis of these findings and data from other studies, we made a preliminary estimate of the food exposure risk for man, which provides additional assurance that existing public health measures can prevent transmission of BSE to man.

PMID: 15733719 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]