Scrapie in Sheep

Scrapie in Sheep

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
I learned that the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service's (APHIS) Veterinary Services, APHIS is committed to eradicating scrapie in domestic sheep from the U.S. Sounds great but what exactly is scrapie. For an answer I talked with Idaho State veterinarian Debra Lawrence: "Scrapie is a prion disease which has been around forever. It is similar to mad cow in fact some people theorize that mad cow came from scrapie in sheep but there is no proof of that at all but mainly it is a neurological disease. It is characteristic to sheep only. It is mostly found in black faced sheep but not absolutely necessarily area. It causes them to have a stumbling gait, sometimes they rub against the fence because they inch and that is why they call it scrapie because they scrape themselves against things to relieve the itch. However it is all in the brain, the nervous system and is generally passed from mother to offspring. It is not terribly communicable but in certain genetic lines of sheep they are more susceptible than others. Is it communicable from domestic sheep to wild sheep, as in Big Horn? To my knowledge they have not found it in the wild sheep. They have reduced the incidence of it a whole bunch since they started the scrapie eradication program.
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