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Canadian Food Inspection Agency, National Centre for Animal Disease, Lethbridge (WOAH reference laboratory for BSE)

The National Centre for Animal Disease (NCAD) in Lethbridge County, Alberta, is a federal Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) laboratory, first opened in 1905, that forms the CFIA National Centres for Animal Disease together with the foreign animal disease centre in Winnipeg. It is Canada's reference laboratory for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and has been a World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH, then OIE) reference laboratory for BSE since 2006. The CFIA describes it as the only laboratory in Canada that can confirm a suspected BSE case, and its testing underpins the national BSE surveillance programme that supports Canada's negligible BSE risk status. It also says the laboratory leads an international research team on prion diseases including BSE, chronic wasting disease (CWD) and scrapie. Its staff have published on BSE typing, test performance, atypical BSE, prion breakdown in compost and RT-QuIC for CWD. In 2007 it was named as the coordinating site of an Alberta Prion Research Institute funded study of CWD in macaques, published in 2026 without a CFIA affiliation. It works on animal prion diseases only and does not test human samples for CJD. Information only, not medical or veterinary advice.

Key facts

  • The Lethbridge facility first opened in 1905, set up by the North West Mounted Police, and is now part of the National Centres for Animal Disease in CFIA Science Branch, alongside the National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease in Winnipeg.
  • It is a WOAH reference laboratory for anthrax, BSE and bovine viral diarrhoea, and the Canadian reference laboratory for BSE, bovine viral diarrhoea, equine viral arteritis, infectious bovine rhinotracheitis and leptospirosis; its diagnostic testing includes BSE and scrapie, and it is ISO/IEC 17025 accredited through the Standards Council of Canada.
  • WOAH designated it a reference laboratory for BSE in 2006; the mandate covers research on BSE diagnosis, surveillance and control and advice, assistance and training for WOAH member countries, and the designated expert is the head of its TSE unit.
  • The CFIA reference laboratory list (modified 11 May 2026) calls it the only laboratory in Canada able to confirm a suspected BSE case through testing, links its work to the BSE surveillance programme that keeps Canada's WOAH negligible BSE risk status, and says it leads an international prion research team on BSE, CWD and scrapie.
  • Its current BSE research interests are the pathogenesis of the three known BSE types, experimental transmission of H-type and L-type BSE to sheep, propagation of a Swiss atypical BSE isolate in cattle, and biomarkers for detecting BSE before death.
  • In the eleventh Canadian BSE case, brain samples reached the National BSE Reference Laboratory in Lethbridge on 11 December 2007, a run of rapid tests, the SAF immunoblot and immunohistochemistry confirmed BSE by 17 December, and the case was Canada's second atypical one.
  • A 2010 study from the laboratory typed the 17 Canadian BSE cases diagnosed before November 2009: one H-type, one L-type and 15 classical, with no PRNP mutations found in exon 3.
  • A 2011 study compared the analytical sensitivity of six BSE tests used by the Canadian reference laboratory and judged all four rapid kits fit for targeted surveillance, with the SAF immunoblot the most sensitive.
  • Canada's most recent confirmed BSE case was an H-type atypical case in a 104-month-old Alberta beef cow, confirmed on 17 December 2021; the laboratory reported in 2025 that this cow carried a germline E211K change in the prion protein gene, the first Canadian BSE case with this mutation.
  • Lethbridge staff co-authored a 2016 study showing RT-QuIC can detect CWD prions in elk faeces before clinical signs, a 2022 study with the CFIA Ottawa scrapie and CWD laboratory and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada showing composting reduces BSE prion seeding activity by about 1 to 4 log10, and 2023 and 2024 papers with the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut and the University of Calgary on BSE typing and CWD strains.
  • A Europe PMC affiliation search finds 31 prion, BSE, CWD or scrapie papers with a CFIA Lethbridge address from 2008 to 2025.
  • In November 2007 CORDIS reported a 3.5 million euro APRI grant for a primate study of CWD transmission, coordinated from a Lethbridge laboratory (which CORDIS placed at the University of Calgary) with the German Primate Center as European coordinator and partners including NIH in Hamilton, the Robert Koch Institute and the French CEA. Health Canada in April 2017 described initial results of an APRI funded macaque project led by a CFIA scientist.
  • That study was published in Science Advances on 27 May 2026: 18 macaques housed at the German Primate Center, two with clinical signs suggestive of prion disease, low prion levels in tissues and full transmission to mice and bank voles on serial passage; authors are listed under the University of Calgary and German and US institutions, with no CFIA affiliation, and funding includes APRI grants.
  • Rabies testing at Lethbridge stopped on 1 June 2026, with samples sent to the CFIA Ottawa Animal Health Laboratory.

Timeline

  1. 1905The Lethbridge animal disease facility opens under the North West Mounted Police.
  2. 2006WOAH designates the Lethbridge laboratory a reference laboratory for BSE.
  3. 2007CORDIS reports the APRI funded primate CWD study coordinated from Lethbridge.
  4. 2007The National BSE Reference Laboratory in Lethbridge receives samples from Canada's eleventh BSE case, confirmed as atypical by 17 December.
  5. 2010Publishes the typing of 17 Canadian BSE cases, including one H-type and one L-type.
  6. 2011Publishes the analytical sensitivity comparison of six BSE tests.
  7. 2016Co-authors RT-QuIC detection of CWD prions in elk faeces.
  8. 2017Health Canada cites initial macaque CWD results from the APRI funded CFIA-led project.
  9. 2021Canada confirms an H-type atypical BSE case in a 104-month-old Alberta beef cow.
  10. 2022Publishes BSE prion degradation in compost with the CFIA Ottawa laboratory.
  11. 2025Reports the E211K PRNP change in the 2021 H-type BSE case.
  12. 2026CFIA reference laboratory list confirms Lethbridge as the BSE reference laboratory.
  13. 2026The macaque CWD study is published in Science Advances.
  14. 2026Rabies testing moves from Lethbridge to Ottawa.
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