Disease Epidemics
The outbreak of an animal disease can entail enormous social and economic costs. Continuous surveillance of a disease and the right tools for its elimination are of paramount importance. In this issue of eSCOPE we highlight Prionics' Ceditest® CSFV products which are making an important contribution to the detection and control of Classical Swine Fever (CSF).

BSE / vCJD Detection
Fortunately, a major outbreak of the human form of BSE, variant Creutzfedt-Jakob Disease (vCJD) has not occurred and fewer human beings have contracted the disease than was previously thought. Recent results of prion research, however, show that vCJD may be hidden in our population. This means vigilance with blood products and transplantation tissues is critical to avoid this disease reaching epidemic levels. The development of blood tests for the detection of vCJD will be an important topic at the Prion 2006 Conference - held this year, October 4 - 6, in Turin, Italy.

Cedi-Diagnostics Acquisition
Prionics' goal of preventing animal disease outbreaks and controlling important farm animal diseases has led to the acquisition of Cedi-Diagnostics. With this acquisition Prionics has significantly increased the number of products it can offer to its customers, and furthermore, has increased the territory it can directly serve with its new affiliate, Cedi, in Lelystad, the Netherlands.

Stephanie Musshafen and Marjan van der Haar
Corporate Communications