The time-course of a scrapie outbreak

McIntyre, KM, Gubbins, S, Goldmann, W, Stevenson, E and Baylis, M ORCID: 0000-0003-0335-187X (2006) The time-course of a scrapie outbreak BMC Veterinary Research, 2 (1). 20-. ISSN 1746-6148, 1746-6148

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Abstract

Background: Because the incubation period of scrapie has a strong host genetic component and a dose-response relationship, it is possible that changes will occur during an outbreak, especially in the genotypes of cases, age-at-onset of disease and, perhaps, the clinical signs displayed. We investigated these factors for a large outbreak of natural scrapie, which yielded sufficient data to detect temporal trends. Results: Cases occurred mostly in two genotypes, VRQ/VRQ and VRQ/ARQ, with those early in the outbreak more likely to be of the VRQ/VRQ genotype. As the epidemic progressed, the age-at-onset of disease increased, which reflected changes in the genotypes of cases rather than changes in the age-at-onset within genotypes. Clinical signs of cases changed over the course of the outbreak. As the epidemic progressed VRQ/VRQ and VRQ/ARQ sheep were more likely to be reported with behavioural changes, while VRQ/VRQ sheep only were less likely to be reported with loss of condition. Conclusion: This study of one of the largest scrapie outbreaks in the UK allowed investigation of the effect of PrP genotype on other epidemiological parameters. Our analysis indicated that, although age-at-onset and clinical signs changed over time, the observed changes were largely, but not exclusively, driven by the time course of the PrP genotypes of cases. © 2006 McIntyre et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	## TULIP Type: Articles/Papers (Journal) ##
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Animals, Sheep, Scrapie, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Disease Outbreaks, Aging, Time Factors, United Kingdom
Subjects:	?? SF ??
Divisions:	Faculty of Health & Life Sciences > Inst. Infection, Vet & Ecological Sciences > School of Veterinary Science
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	01 Jul 2008 15:41
Last Modified:	22 May 2026 20:17
DOI:	10.1186/1746-6148-2-20
Publisher's Statement :	© 2006 McIntyre et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Related Websites:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/766
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