The Generative Brain
Catalan Sub-directorate General for Surveillance and Response to Public Health Emergencies (SGVRESP, Secretaria de Salut Publica, Departament de Salut; ASPCAT), human TSE (CJD) surveillance logo

Catalan Sub-directorate General for Surveillance and Response to Public Health Emergencies (SGVRESP, Secretaria de Salut Publica, Departament de Salut; ASPCAT), human TSE (CJD) surveillance

Human prion disease surveillance in Catalonia runs through the regional epidemiological surveillance network (XVEC), coordinated by the Subdireccio General de Vigilancia i Resposta a Emergencies de Salut Publica in the Secretaria de Salut Publica of the Catalan health department, presented publicly under the Agencia de Salut Publica de Catalunya (ASPCAT) brand. The legal basis is Decret 203/2015 and Ordre SLT/205/2019, which make human transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, including variant CJD, an individually notifiable disease in Catalonia. The regional system feeds the Spanish national registry at the ISCIII National Epidemiology Centre under the national protocol. The unit appears as a coauthor affiliation on Hospital Clinic and Bellvitge prion papers from 2013 to 2025, including the 2022 VM1 subtype paper and the 2025 RT-QuIC study. No official document opened designates Hospital Clinic as the Catalan reference laboratory.

Key facts

  • Ordre SLT/205/2019 of 19 November 2019 (DOGC 8009, 25 November 2019) replaced annex 1 of Decret 203/2015 and lists human TSE, including variant CJD, for individual notification only, with no urgent and no laboratory (SNMC) notification.
  • Decret 203/2015 of 15 September 2015 created the Catalan epidemiological surveillance network and set the notification systems for notifiable diseases and outbreaks; its final provision lets the health minister change the disease list by order.
  • The official 2019 leaflet defines individual notification as reporting on suspicion within the first 24 hours and marks human TSE for that mode only.
  • The ASPCAT notifiable disease page (updated 29 April 2024) places the system under the sub-directorate in the Secretaria de Salut Publica and describes individual, urgent and microbiological notification, with an out of hours service (SUVEC).
  • The ASPCAT individual notification list includes transmissible spongiform encephalopathies without the urgent marker and links no CJD specific form or protocol.
  • Notification runs from doctors through their centre management to nine territorial surveillance services and SUVEC daily, and from there to the sub-directorate weekly.
  • Under the national protocol and the ministerial order of 21 February 2001, doctors must notify a suspected human TSE case within 48 hours to their regional registry, regions send new cases and updates to the national registry monthly until neuropathology closes the case, and each region has a clinical and an epidemiological coordinator named by its health department.
  • The 2021 national overview describes 17 regional systems reporting to the national registry, each with a public health and a clinical coordinator.
  • Coauthors give the affiliation General Subdirectorate of Surveillance and Response to Emergencies in Public Health, Department of Public Health in Catalonia, on human prion papers led from Hospital Clinic, IDIBAPS and Bellvitge from 2013 to 2025.
  • The 2022 VM1 paper described six sporadic CJD codon 129 MV cases with type 1 PrPSc, four of them in Catalonia, with authors from the Catalan public health sub-directorate, Bellvitge-IDIBELL and Bologna.
  • The 2025 J Neurol study of 157 suspected sporadic CJD patients from 38 Spanish hospitals, led from the Hospital Clinic Immunology Department, includes the Catalan public health sub-directorate among its affiliations.
  • A 2023 congress abstract with a sub-directorate coauthor reviewed CSF from 154 patients sent to the Hospital Clinic Immunology Service from 2018 to 2022 and found RT-QuIC sensitivity 91.8 percent and specificity 98.9 percent against 75.0 and 64.1 percent for 14-3-3.
  • A 2001 Catalan surveillance study reported that the CSF 14-3-3 assay entered the Catalan CJD surveillance system in 1997 and that recorded sporadic CJD incidence roughly tripled against 1993 to 1996, mostly through better case finding.
  • The Canal Salut public page on TSEs (updated 22 October 2025) gives no information on surveillance, notification, reference laboratories or Catalan case numbers.

Timeline

  1. 1993Start of the case series used for Catalan CJD surveillance and for the national registry's retrospective cases.
  2. 1995Prospective national human TSE surveillance begins, with regions notifying the CNE registry.
  3. 1997CSF 14-3-3 assay introduced into Catalan CJD surveillance.
  4. 2001State order of 21 February 2001 makes human TSE notifiable within 48 hours to regional registries.
  5. 2001Catalan surveillance study on the 14-3-3 assay published in J Neurol.
  6. 2013Earliest record seen with the sub-directorate affiliation on a Catalan prion paper (Prion, PrP expression in MM1 and VV2 sporadic CJD).
  7. 2015Decret 203/2015 creates the Catalan epidemiological surveillance network.
  8. 2019Ordre SLT/205/2019 updates the notifiable disease list; human TSE stays individually notifiable.
  9. 2022VM1 sporadic CJD subtype paper with a sub-directorate coauthor published.
  10. 2025RT-QuIC study of 157 suspected sporadic CJD patients with a sub-directorate coauthor published.
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