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Pests and Diseases

Scrapie

Prion and Emerging Livestock Diseases

A fatal, prion-caused neurodegenerative disease of sheep and goats, the oldest recognized member of the transmissible spongiform encephalopathy family, described in European flocks since at least the eighteenth century and named for the compulsive scraping and rubbing affected animals display as the disease progresses. It is transmitted between animals and can persist in contaminated pasture and lambing environments for years, and susceptibility is strongly influenced by an animal's prion protein genotype, which is why many national scrapie control programs are built around selectively breeding for resistant genotypes.

Facts
Classification
Agent Kind
Prion 1
Connections

Associated With

Sheep, Livestock

Scrapie is a fatal transmissible spongiform encephalopathy of sheep, the first prion disease described.

Caused By Agent Kind

Prion, Concepts

Entity-backed identity for the agent-kind enum value this pest or disease already carries, resolved to an agriculture concept by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The agent-kind fact itself stays on the pest or disease unchanged.

Sources
1. Scrapie (Wikipedia)
Wikimedia Foundation
  • Opening definition paragraph
    Scrapie is a fatal, degenerative disease affecting the nervous systems of sheep and goats. It is one of several transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), and as such it is thought to be caused by a prion. Scrapie has been known since at least 1732 and does not appear to be transmissible to humans. However, it has been found to be experimentally transmissible to humanised transgenic mice and non-human primates.
  • lead description
    A fatal, prion-caused neurodegenerative disease of sheep and goats, the oldest recognized member of the transmissible spongiform encephalopathy family, described in European flocks since at least the eighteenth century and named for the compulsive scraping and rubbing affected animals display as the disease progresses.
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