The evolution of the prevalence of classical scrapie in sheep in Great Britain using surveillance data between 2005 and 2012

The risks of classical scrapie infection in animals with genotypes of National Scrapie Plan Types I-IV (all other genotypes), relative to Type V (all genotypes containing V136 R154 Q171 and not A136 R154 R171), were estimated to be: 0, 0.0008, 0.07, and 0.21 respectively. The model estimated a very low rate of reporting of clinical suspects and a large decline from 2007 of the probability of a sheep being reported as a clinical suspect. The model also estimated that the expected number of sheep holdings with classical scrapie in 2012 was 215 (95% confidence interval: 33-437), out of a total of approximately 72,000 sheep holdings in GB. Model estimates indicate that the prevalence in 2012 has dropped to 10% of that in 2005, showing the effectiveness of the control measures. It also shows a bias in the destination of infected animals, with the majority of infected animals being detected in the fallen stock surveillance stream, and an extremely low proportion of animals detected as clinical suspects; this is very important in terms of the design of surveillance schemes for classical scrapie.