[Transmissible spongiform encephalopathies in animals]

The transmissible spongiform encephalopathies affect several species of higher animals apart from man. Amongst these, undoubtedly the best known is that affecting cattle, since the association between consumption of beef and its derivatives and the appearance of a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans has been established.

This type of pathology has been well known for many years in the ovine family, particularly in sheep and goats. In spite of the establishment of hypotheses linking the cause of the appearance of spongiform encephalopathy in cows with an interspecies jump of the disease between the ovine and bovine families, this has not yet been proved. Concomitant with the epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, other species of animals were reported to have been affected by an identical disease. These included farmed mink, deer, elks, cats and two species of exotic African ungulates (the nyala and the greater kudu). All cases were described in animals kept in captivity for human consumption. Thus it would seem that there was a common cause of the disease in all cases.

In this paper we describe the most relevant aspects of the appearance of this disorder in animals, including the symptoms, epidemiology and pathology typical of each specific condition.