How Mad Cow Disease affects both Humans and Animals.

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When I started to study "Mad cow disease", it was the name that caught my attention because, just imagine with me for a second, how hefty and strong a cow is, when I see them walk on the road, I simply try to avoid them, then imagine that such animal runs mad, can you imagine the type of havoc it is going to cause? It is going to be such a terrible scene to behold, but the question to be answered now is, does "Mad cow disease" literarily means the cow is going to run mad? and what happens even after a cow gets infected in that manner, this is what you will be finding out in this post and I hope you find it worth your while.

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While this disease is commonly referred to as, "Mad cow disease", its other more scientific name is "Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy". Bovine in the name means that the disease affects cows, Spongiform on the other hand, refers to how the brain of a sick cow looks, it has a spongy appearance when viewed through a microscope, and Encephalopathy signifies that the disease is a brain one, for short it is called BSE.

When a cow is affected with BSE, it is a progressive neurological disorder, which means it gets worse over time and then the central nervous system of the brain gets damaged as well. Most scientists believe that BSE develops in the animal when a normal cellular protein in the brain known as PRION protein loses its normal shape, for some unknown reasons, then it triggers a chain reaction of continuous protein misfolding, leading to the destruction of brain cells and the nervous system tissue. There is an assumption that the cattle could acquire the BSE-related prions from animal feed that has been contaminated with prion disease from sheep.

The first diagnosis of BSE in cattle was in 1986, and it led to an epidemic in Great Britain, it didn't stop until significant measures were put in place to limit the transmission of the disease, right from the moment of the initial outbreak, the disease has been detected in cattle in Canada, Europe, and Japan and just a single case was detected in the United States.

When an animal has BSE, prions get concentrated in two major areas in the body, that is;

The nervous system tissues, like the brain, spinal cord, and the eyes.
The lymphatic tissue, which includes the lymph nodes, the bone marrow, and the spleen.

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When a cow is infected with BSE, it shows a sign of incoordination, a sick cow would find it very difficult to get up and walk, and it could also act nervous or violent-which is a major reason why it is termed a "mad-cow disease". It usually takes about 4-6 years from the time of infection with abnormal prion to when it first shows symptoms of BSE, which is called the incubation period.

With very strong evidence, there is an indication that BSE can be transmitted to humans when they consume beef affected with BSE, creating the human form of the disease known as- Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), which is a rare and fatal brain disorder. People who get mad cow disease often have severe signs and symptoms including personality changes, involuntary muscle movements, muscle stiffness, seizures, and dementia. It can affect any age group, but it is more predominant in adults, it is on rare occasions that teenagers are affected. While signs and symptoms of vCJD will make it easy for pediatricians to carry out the required diagnosis, the only way to properly make a clear diagnosis is through the examination of the brain tissue.

The disease tends to affect people who are young. BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) is a progressive neurological disorder of cattle that results from infection by an unusual transmissible agent called a prion. The nature of the transmissible agent is not well understood. Currently, the most accepted theory is that the agent is a modified form of a normal protein known as prion protein. For reasons that are not yet understood, the normal prion protein changes into a pathogenic (harmful) form that then damages the central nervous system of cattle.

There is no evidence based on proof that cooking contaminated meat will destroy the presence of BSE organisms, but existing government regulations of the beef industry highly limit the risk of transmission of BSE to other people. incubation phase, there is often no way to tell that a cow has BSE by just looking at it merely. The moment a cow begins to show symptoms, it continues to get sick and more sick until it dies eventually, this would take about 2 weeks to six months. There is often no treatment for BSE and there is no vaccine to prevent it as well. The only way to test for BSE is after a cow dies, there is no way to test for it when the cow is still alive, it is after the cow dies that the brain tissue would be observed under a microscope, and a spongy appearance would be seen. Or through the use of a test kit that can detect the presence of abnormal prions in the brain.