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European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), Parma

EFSA is the EU agency for scientific advice on food and feed safety. It was set up by the General Food Law, Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 of 28 January 2002, and is based in Parma, Italy, after starting in temporary premises in Brussels (seat dates from search excerpts only). For prion diseases its role is on the animal side: its Panel on Biological Hazards (BIOHAZ) writes the risk assessments, mostly at European Commission request, that sit behind the EU animal TSE rules in Regulation 999/2001, covering BSE, scrapie and chronic wasting disease (CWD). It sets protocols for evaluating TSE rapid tests, and since December 2016 it has written the annual EU summary of TSE surveillance data. Human CJD surveillance is not EFSA's job; that sits with ECDC, with which EFSA has written a joint opinion on scrapie. Information only, not medical, legal or veterinary advice.

Key facts

  • Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 of 28 January 2002 (OJ L 31, 1 February 2002) establishes EFSA in Article 22 and tasks it with scientific advice, technical support, independent information and risk communication on anything with a direct or indirect impact on food and feed safety; Article 64 sets the start of operations at 1 January 2002.
  • Under the same act, EFSA's scientific opinions come from a Scientific Committee and permanent Scientific Panels of independent experts; eight panels were listed at set up. TSE work is handled by the BIOHAZ Panel, which has had working groups on BSE risk from processed animal protein, BSE cases born after the total feed ban, the EU TSE summary report, atypical scrapie surveillance and CWD.
  • EFSA states that all EU measures on animal TSEs are consolidated in Regulation 999/2001, that it gives advice on animal and public health aspects of TSEs mainly at the Commission's request, and that it prepares protocols for evaluating new ante-mortem and post-mortem rapid TSE tests and reviews CWD diagnostic methods.
  • In a 2012 opinion on the Commission's fourth rapid test call (launched October 2007), six test applications were assessed against EFSA protocols and only one, Prionics Check PrioSTRIP SR with visual reading, met all requirements, for TSE detection in small ruminant brain tissue.
  • Since December 2016 EFSA, not the Commission, writes the annual EU TSE surveillance summary; the act requires publication by the end of November each year. The 2024 report (13 November 2025) covers the 27 Member States, Northern Ireland and eight non-EU countries: 980,624 cattle tested in the EU and Northern Ireland with 3 atypical BSE cases, 458 sheep and 71 goat scrapie cases, 1,761 cervids tested in the EU with none positive, and 2 CWD positive moose in Norway.
  • In July 2017 EFSA judged contaminated feed the most likely source of 60 classical BSE cases born after the 2001 EU feed ban, and in July 2018 it updated its quantitative assessment of BSE risk from processed animal protein in feed.
  • On CWD, EFSA's January 2017 opinion followed the first European cases (a wild reindeer and a wild moose in Norway, April and May 2016), judged live cervid movement from Norway into Sweden and Finland the most likely route of entry, and proposed three years of monitoring in eight countries. A 2019 update found preliminary evidence that European and North American strains differ and said available data allow no conclusion on the zoonotic potential of either.
  • The 2023 opinion reviewing that monitoring (1 September 2017 to 28 February 2022) counted 155,660 cervids tested and 31 cases (13 reindeer, 15 moose, 3 red deer) in Norway, Sweden and Finland, found the monitoring aims only partly met, and recommended lasting surveillance of high risk cervids, PRNP genotyping of all positives and a central EU data system.
  • On scrapie, EFSA reviewed the 2014 Cassard study at the Commission's request and in August 2015 concluded that it supports but does not change the 2011 joint ECDC and EFSA opinion that there is no scientific proof that classical scrapie passes to humans under real-life conditions. A 2017 opinion on genetic resistance in goats led to a resistance option for controlling scrapie in goat herds in EU law.

Timeline

  1. 2002Regulation 178/2002 adopted, establishing EFSA; operations set to begin 1 January 2002.
  2. 2003European Council chooses Parma as the permanent seat (search excerpt only).
  3. 2005Parma seat officially inaugurated (search excerpt only).
  4. 2011Joint ECDC and EFSA opinion on scrapie and human health.
  5. 2012Opinion on new TSE rapid tests from the 2007 Commission call.
  6. 2015Review of the Cassard scrapie study published.
  7. 2016First annual EU TSE surveillance summary written by EFSA.
  8. 2017First CWD opinion and eight country monitoring proposal.
  9. 2017Opinion on 60 classical BSE cases born after the feed ban.
  10. 2019CWD update III published.
  11. 2023CWD monitoring opinion IV published.
  12. 20252024 EU TSE surveillance summary published.
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