By Marjory Inglis, health reporter

A £70,000 GRANT to help “map” multiple sclerosis in Scotland was announced at an event in Dundee yesterday.

Scotland has the highest prevalence of MS in the world, but no-one knows why.

The grant, from the Scottish Government, will identify how many people have the condition and where they live, information that will be used to inform research and improve services.

Multiple sclerosis is a complex disease of the central nervous system which impairs the brain’s ability to send messages to the muscles. There is no cure.

There are approximately 10,500 people in Scotland with MS, around 350 of them living in Dundee.

The city has been at the forefront of developing services for people with MS and earlier this year brought together a team of specialists which was the first of its kind in Scotland.

The group includes a specialist social worker and a physiotherapist to work with nurses and neurologists.

The team has already begun working with MS patients locally but yesterday, at an event in Discovery Point, Scottish public health minister Shona Robison officially launched the team.

She was the guest speaker at the launch, where key stakeholders met to learn more about the difference the specialist team will make to people affected by MS in the city.

“For reasons we don’t fully understand, Scotland has the highest rate of multiple sclerosis in the world,” said Ms Robison.

“That fact alone means we need to take the condition extremely seriously, but of course behind every statistic there are real people and real families coping with circumstances which can be extremely difficult.

“Our efforts have to focus on them.”

Ms Robison announced the grant to support the Multiple Sclerosis Society Scotland’s work to “map” MS, the first national audit of the prevalence and incidence of the condition in Scotland.

The national audit was launched by the charity as the Scottish MS Register project in October 2006 to develop a full picture of the prevalence and incidence of MS in Scotland for the first time.

Yesterday the charity welcomed the announcement of the grant.

Mark Hazelwood, director of the MS Society Scotland, said, “We launched our project to comprehensively ‘map’ multiple sclerosis in Scotland for the first time 18 months ago.

“Working together with the NHS in Scotland, our aim is to develop a fuller picture of MS across Scotland, including eventually learning exactly how many people have the condition.

“This will assist the development of appropriate services for people affected by MS, as well as providing an important resource for MS researchers seeking to shed new light on it, including why there is so much more MS in Scotland.

“The support that the government has given both logistically, and now financially, to get this national audit started is very welcome indeed and will certainly help to bring about positive results for people affected by MS in Scotland in the future.”