§ Lord Lucasasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether any large scale studies are in progress for the molecular strain typing of scrapie in sheep. [HL1892]
Barones HaymanMolecular strain typing needs to be performed under rigorous conditions in a laboratory to give interpretable results. MAFF has supported several studies which have attempted to repeat or scale up this process. MAFF has recognised the need to explore further the definition of strain both in mouse bioassay and by molecular methods and has included this in its Research Requirements document published on 4 April 2000. In addition, the strains present in the brains from 141 sheep with natural scrapie are currently being determined using mouse bioassay, and a further 94 are planned.