New Test for Mad Cow Disease

A new rapid test for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease, has been cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The test, which detects the presence of the abnormal prions believed to cause BSE, was developed by Enfer Scientific, Ltd. (Newbridge, Ireland). The company entered into a marketing and distribution agreement in 2001 with Abbott Laboratories (Abbott Park, IL, USA), which gave the Abbott exclusive rights to sell the test throughout the world except in Ireland. The test has been approved for cattle testing in the European Union and Japan. The rapid test provides results within hours, is easy to use, and meets the workflow needs of the screening laboratories approved by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

"The rapid Enfer BSE assay tests every bovine brain sample in duplicate,” said Jim Koziarz, Ph.D., vice president, research and development, diagnostics, Abbot Laboratories. "If either test result is reactive, the brain specimen is resampled and retested in duplicate. This type of testing method ensures that a true positive would be reliably detected.”

Enfer Scientific is the world's largest screening laboratory for transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) using the Enfer test. The company routinely performs up to 9,000 tests per day, providing results to beef processors within a minimum turnaround time of 12 hours. Prior to the approval of rapid BSE tests, the USDA used an immunohistochemistry BSE test that took several days to perform and report the results.


Related Links:
Enfer Scientific
Abbott Labs