Prevalence of sheep infected with classical scrapie in Great Britain: integrating multiple sources of surveillance data for 2002

Estimates for the prevalence of sheep infected with classical scrapie are essential for assessing the efficacy of control strategies that have been implemented in Great Britain (GB). Here a back-calculation approach was used to estimate the prevalence in the GB national flock by integrating data on reported cases and the results of abattoir and fallen stock surveys for 2002. Prevalence estimates ranged from 0.33 to 2.06%, depending on the estimates used for the frequencies of prion protein (PrP) genotypes in the national flock and the stage of incubation at which the diagnostic tests used are able to detect infected animals. The risk of infection was found to be higher than that of clinical disease, especially in those PrP genotypes that have a later age at onset of clinical disease. Moreover, results suggest that a high proportion (more than 55%) of infected animals surviving to disease onset die on farm before clinical signs become apparent, which helps account for the high observed prevalence in the fallen stock compared with the abattoir survey. The analyses indicated that attention needs to be given to identifying the stage of incubation at which diagnostic tests are able to detect infected animals and obtaining better demographic data for the GB national flock.