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Scrapie-like spongiform encephalopathies (SEs) in animals are chronic diseases characterized by long incubation period followed by development of clinical signs associated with progressive loss of central nervous function. Before 1980, naturally occurring SEs had been recognized in four species: in sheep and goats as scrapie; in humans as kuru, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker syndrome, and fatal familial insomnia; in minks as transmissible mink encephalopathy. Since then, however, such transmissible encephalopathies have been diagnosed in a growing number of other species. An SE has been found to be the cause of chronic wasting disease in captive and free-living deer. “Mad cows” dying of bovine spongiform encephalopathies (BSE) present a major agricultural problem in Great Britain and pose a potential public health dilemma. In association with the BSE epidemic in domestic cattle in Europe, SEs have been diagnosed in domestic cats and 10 species of zoo animals in or from Great Britain. In the present communication, scrapie-like SEs occurred in dom7estic and wild and zoo animals are reviewed mainly in view of etiology, epidemiology, clinical signs, and diagnosis.
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