# Presentation: 493068

## Food Chain Protection in the UK

**Peter Soul**
- Veterinary TSE Division
- Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
- DEFRA

## Food Chain Protection in the UK

- Eliminate disease in food animals
- Prevent contamination of the food supply

**Notes:**
2
The overarching objectives for food chain protection are:

- to reduce then eradicate the disease in food animals to remove the source of infection;

- meanwhile to ensure that there is no contamination of the food chain itself.

## Eliminate disease in food animals

- Prevent infection via feed
- Action on clinical cases
- Maternal transmission
- Horizontal transmission
- Breeding for resistance
- Surveillance

## Prevent infection via feed

- Ban on the feeding of PAP to food animals
- National Feed Survey

## abattoir

- offal

- meal

- ruminant feed

- infected
- cattle

- sheep

- healthy
- cattle

- offspring

**July 1988**

- ?

**Prevent the feeding of ruminant protein to ruminants **

## abattoir

- ruminant feed

- infected
- cattle

- Food chain

- healthy
- cattle OTM

-    ruminant protein to ruminants ban
-   prevent infected cattle entering the food chain
-   prevent the possibility of horizontal transmission at calving
-   SRM controls
-   prevent cross-contamination
-   OTMS
-   maternal transmission
-   PAP ban

- offspring

- offal

- meal

- Indirect

- Indirect

- other mammals

**BSE controls**

- SRM

## Feed-related controls

- 1988  Ruminant protein to ruminants
- 1990  SBO excluded from all animal feed
- 1991  Mammalian MBM excluded from fertiliser
- 1994  Mammalian protein to ruminants (all MS)
- 1996  Mammalian MBM to all livestock
- 1996  Feed recall completed 1 August
- 2001  Animal protein to all food animals

## Action on clinical cases

- Notifiable
- Compensation
- Isolation
- Destruction of placenta
- Controls on milk
- Destruction and incineration
- Diagnosis

## Maternal transmission

- ? up to 10%
- Insufficient to sustain epidemic
- Offspring cull
- Testing of offspring

## Surveillance

- Passive
- awareness
- increasing negative rate
- incentives & disincentives
- Active
- high risk sub-populations
- 96/97 cohort
- sheep and goats

## Prevent contamination of the food supply

- Clinical cases
- Ante mortem inspection
- SRM controls
- MRM
- OTM rule
- TSE testing

## UK - Specified Risk Materials (Jan 2001)

- Tissue		Cattle			Sheep/Goats
- Head (except tongue)	>6 months		>12 months
- 							skull/brain/eyes
- Spleen			<6 months		Any age
- Tonsil/spinal cord	<6 months		<12 months
- Thymus			<6 months		NO
- Intestines		Any age			NO
- Spinal column		>30 months		NO
- and DRG
- Specified solid waste	YES			YES

**UK - Specified Risk Materials (Jan 2001)**

## MRM

- Ban on use of ruminant bones
- Spinal cord residue
- Dorsal Root Ganglia
- ? risk from bone marrow

## OTM rule

- Removed many pre-clinical cases
- Low risk from UTM cattle
- ~ 5m cattle removed
- Imported meat
- Time to review ?

## TSE testing

- Detects some pre-clinical cases
- Consumer reassurance

## Regulatory control

- Education & training
- Legislation
- Monitoring
- Enforcement
- Audit

## SVS Audit Results% compliance

- SVS Audit Results% compliance

## Control of the epidemic

- 43% reduction in clinical cases
- Negative rate increasing
- Av age of clinical cases increasing
- 7 BARBS confirmed to date

## BSE - confirmed cases by clinical onset      

**BSE - confirmed cases by clinical onset      **

## BSE  - confirmed cases by month of birth

**BSE  - confirmed cases by month of birth**