Scrapie is uncommon, but Virginia and federal officials continue to monitor for the degenerative disease of sheep and goats.
The sheep and goat disease was discussed during a Feb. 2 small ruminent webinar hosted by the Virginia Cooperative Extension.
The disease is caused by a prion, but is still not fully understood, according to Sarah Firebaugh, a USDA veterinarian.
The scrapie prion has a misfolded protein that causes the DNA of infected animals to encode for that protein.
Mad cow disease and chronic wasting disease are also caused by prions.
Although there is a randomized scrapie, in which an animal becomes infected but is not contagious, it is the classical, communicable scrapie that researchers are tracking.