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Technical Report

Laboratory activities involving transmissible spongiform encephalopathy causing agents

Risk assessment and biosafety recommendations in Belgium

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Pages 420-433 | Received 05 Aug 2013, Accepted 18 Sep 2013, Published online: 20 Sep 2013
 

Abstract

Since the appearance in 1986 of epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), a new form of neurological disease in cattle which also affected human beings, many diagnostic and research activities have been performed to develop detection and therapeutic tools. A lot of progress was made in better identifying, understanding and controlling the spread of the disease by appropriate monitoring and control programs in European countries. This paper reviews the recent knowledge on pathogenesis, transmission and persistence outside the host of prion, the causative agent of transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSE) in mammals with a particular focus on risk (re)assessment and management of biosafety measures to be implemented in diagnostic and research laboratories in Belgium. Also, in response to the need of an increasing number of European diagnostic laboratories stopping TSE diagnosis due to a decreasing number of TSE cases reported in the last years, decontamination procedures and a protocol for decommissioning TSE diagnostic laboratories is proposed.

10.4161/pri.26533

Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest

No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Katia Pauwels, Didier Breyer and Martine Goossens (Scientific Institute of Public Health, Brussels, Belgium) and Willy Zorzi (University of Liège, Liège, Belgium) for their useful contribution to this document. This work received support from the Brussels-Capital Region (IBGE-BIM), the Flemish Region (LNE) and Wallonia (DGARNE).