NDON, Oct 13 (Reuter) - British drug company Proteus
|> International Plc said on Thursday it had pioneered a test for
|> Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, or ``mad cow disease'', that
|> could eventually determine whether live cattle are infected.
|>       The group said in a statement its new technique had proved
|> 100 percent accurate in confirming previous diagnoses on dead
|> cattle brains and offered the prospect of testing live organs
|> and blood to see whether the disease is present.
|>       There is currently no way of testing live animals to see if
|> they have BSE and no-one knows exactly how much at risk humans
|> are if they eat infected beef or drink milk from diseased cows.
|>       ``It's important,'' said Professor Richard Lacey at Leeds
|> University, a leading campaigner on the dangers of BSE.
|>       ``It is a breakthrough in that it could lead to control of
|> the problem,'' he told Reuters.
|>       Lacey said he saw no reason why such a test on live organs
|> or blood could not one day be applied to the human form of the
|> degenerative brain disease, known as Creutzfeldt-Jakob.
|>       But Proteus said it was too early to say whether the test
|> might have any human application.
|>       Lacey said for now, the main significance of such a test
|> would be to identify the extent and nature of contamination
|> among live cattle with a view to eliminating affected herds.
|>       British beef is on probation in Europe. Trade has been
|> curbed after Germany tried to ban imports across the 12-nation
|> European Union earlier this year because of widespread panic the
|> meat was tainted and humans were potentially at risk.
|>       Since 1989 the British government has banned human
|> consumption of cattle brains and spinal cords and insists that
|> British beef is perfectly safe to eat.
|>       Lacey said there had been 138,000 confirmed cases of BSE
|> since 1986 in Britain and scientists were now seeing
|> confirmation of their hunch that BSE was being passed from one
|> generation of cattle to another, suggesting it is transmitted by
|> blood. The disease has an incubation period of about five years.
|>       ``If we correlate the presence of infectivity in blood with
|> subsequent development of the disease, it means we could
|> identify infected animals early and eliminate them,'' he said.
|>       ``It's a major step -- it would prevent diseased animals ever
|> entering the food chain.''
|>       Proteus said its dead tissue test, which highlights the
|> mutated protein believed to cause BSE, was easier to use than
|> current procedures.
|>       Business development and marketing manager Jurek Sikorski
|> said the technique offered the prospect of detecting BSE in the
|> liver, kidney and spleen as well as blood of live animals.
|>  He said Proteus would soon start a bigger study with a view
|> to developing a diagnostic for use on these tissues and fluids.
|>       That means that Proteus will go beyond merely corroborating
|> diagnoses based on current tests for BSE, as it did in its
|> preliminary trial on 169 dead cattle brains.
|>       A future test could pinpoint BSE before the animal died and
|> diagnose a disease in an animal which current tests might miss.
|>       ``Our test has the potential to yield a more definitive
|> diagnosis,'' Sikorski concluded.
|>       Proteus said it was in discussions with several major
|> companies to commercialise its current test, which could be
|> available by 1995. Sikorski said it hoped to have a test for use
|> on live animals on sale by 1996 or 1997.
|>       The group reckons the potential market for a BSE diagnostic
|> for live cattle and carcasses destined for human consumption is
|> more than $100 million a year in Europe alone.