Reports from MAF Biosecurity New Zealand - Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE) surveillance programme

New Zealand is free from bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), classical scrapie of sheep and goats, and chronic wasting disease of deer (CWD). However, in October 2009 MAF Biosecurity New Zealand (MAFBNZ) announced the finding of the first confirmed case of atypical scrapie/Nor98 in a New Zealand-born sheep(1). This change in status, although not entirely unexpected(2), has still required work to clarify the relationship between classical and atypical scrapie. MAFBNZ strongly supports the view of OIE that atypical scrapie is “clinically, pathologically, biochemically and epidemiologically unrelated to “classical” scrapie, may not be contagious and may, in fact, be a spontaneous degenerative condition of older sheep”(3)...