§ Mrs. EwingTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what have been the levels of expenditure in 1996 prices of Government-sponsored medical research into the incidence of(a) scrapie in sheep, (b) BSE in cattle and (c) Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans for each five-yearly period since 1970; and if he will provide a breakdown of that research with regard to (i) epidemiological and (ii) neuro-pathological studies. [23369]
§ Mr. HoramThe Government have carried out extensive veterinary and basis biological research on the epidemiology of scrapie and bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Much of this work has been done at the Central Veterinary Laboratory and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council's—formerly the Agricultural Food Research Council's—Institute of Animal Health. Details of the funding of this work broken down in the way requested for the years specified would 749W be available only at disproportionate cost. However, from 1991 to the present, the Ministry of Agriculture Fisheries and Food has spent about £20 million on research in these areas.
The Department of Health had provided £809,0001 for epidemiological studies and £658,0001 for neuropathological studies in relation to Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease—CJD—in the period covering the financial years 1990–91 to 1995–96. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced on 20 March, the Department is making an additional £4.5 million available for further research.
The Medical Research Council contributes approximately £600,000 per year to the core costs of the joint Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council—BBSRC/MRC—neuropathogenesis unit which carries out research related to the epidemiology and neuropathology of CJD. In addition, the MRC awarded the national CJD unit £229,000 in January 1993 for a two-year study to investigate the prion protein in human spongiform encephalopathies. The MRC also awarded the NPU £274,000 in March 1994 for a three-year study to investigate the strain characterisation of the CJD agent by transmission to mice. The MRC funded a project in the 1980s on the epidemiology of CJD, risk factors and person to person transmission. Further information from the MRC could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
1 Expenditure expressed in 1996 prices.
§ Mr. Simon HughesTo ask the Secretary of State for Health how many cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease have been detected in each European country in each of the last 10 years; and how many people are estimated to have died in each country in each of the last 10 years as a result of this disease. [23196]
§ Mr. HoramSince 1993, the European Community has funded a project to co-ordinate the surveillance of Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease in those European countries with existing or proposed national CJD surveillance programmes, that is, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. This project is co-ordinated by the national CJD surveillance unit in Edinburgh. The data collected for 1993 and 1994 were published in the national CJD surveillance unit's fourth annual report in August 1995, copies of which have been placed in the Library. The incidence of CJD in the UK is similar to that in the other European countries taking part in the project. The figures for 1995 are not yet available.
§ Dr. StrangTo ask the Secretary of State for Health further to his oral statement of 20 March,Official Report, column 378, that the facts upon which the Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee based its deliberations would be made public, if he will set out which journals and on what dates each paper will be published. [23206]
§ Mr. HoramArrangements are in hand to publish the evidence about a previously unrecognised form of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in a scientific journal as soon as is practicable.