A novel prion disease first reported in three dromedary camels in Algeria in 2018 has now been detected in dromedaries in Tunisia, the second country to be affected within a year, ProMED Mail, the online reporting system of the International Society for Infectious Diseases, reported yesterday.
The Tunisian detection and the latest information about the disease, called camel prion disease (CPD) and sometimes referred to as "mad camel disease", came from a presentation at the Mediterranean Animal Health Network meeting, held in Cairo on Jun 26 and 27. According to the meeting presentation, CPD is spreading rapidly in the Ouargla region of Algeria where the disease was first identified in older camels at a slaughterhouse.
The scientists who presented at the meeting also said preliminary results suggest that the CPD prion is different from scrapie and bovine spongiform encephalitis (BSE, or "mad cow disease").
A comment from the ProMED Mail moderator Arnon Shimshony, DVM, associate professor of veterinary medicine at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, notes that the area where CPD was first found in Algeria is about 174 miles from the Tunisian border.
In the initial report on the first detection in Algerian camels, published in April 2018 in Emerging Infectious Diseases, described disease-specific prion protein in brain tissues from symptomatic camels, including positive samples in lymph nodes, suggesting infection. The moderator also requested more details about the detections in Tunisia, including location, clinical signs, and ages and origins of affected camels.
Jul 29 ProMED Mail post
Apr 18, 2018, CIDRAP News story "'Mad camel' disease? New prion infection causes alarm"
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2019/07/news-scan-jul-30-2019
***> NEW TRANSMISSIBLE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY TSE PRION DISEASE (MAD CAMEL DISEASE) IN A NEW SPECIES <***
NEW OUTBREAK OF TRANSMISSIBLE SPONGIFORM ENCEPHALOPATHY TSE PRION DISEASE IN A NEW SPECIES
Subject: Prion Disease in Dromedary Camels, Algeria
Our identification of this prion disease in a geographically widespread livestock species requires urgent enforcement of surveillance and assessment of the potential risks to human and animal health.
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/24/6/17-2007_article
http://camelusprp.blogspot.com/2018/04/tse-prion-disease-in-dromedary-camels.html
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Dromedary camels in northern Africa have a neurodegenerative prion disease that may have originated decades ago
http://camelusprp.blogspot.com/2018/05/dromedary-camels-in-northern-africa.html
***> IMPORTS AND EXPORTS <***
SEE MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF BANNED ANIMAL PROTEIN AKA MAD COW FEED IN COMMERCE USA DECADES AFTER POST BAN
http://camelusprp.blogspot.com/2018/04/dromedary-camels-algeria-prion-mad.html
http://camelusprp.blogspot.com/
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