Tuesday 23 January, 2001
Worldwide BSE Threat
BSE, or Mad Cow disease, has been seen in at least 11 European countries since it was first identified in Britain in 1986. And the human form of the disease, variant CJD, has been found in Britain, Ireland, France and Germany.
Governments across Europe are currently trying to deal with public concerns and to devise methods for curbing the disease. But fears are now growing that BSE may have spread beyond the European continent. Ruth Whitbread of BBC Science reports.
WHO Concerns
Britain has by far the greatest number of BSE cases, nearly a quarter of a million, and for some years it was seen as a predominantly British problem. It has now spread to many parts of Europe and there have been isolated cases of BSE in Canada, The Falkland Islands, Kuwait and Oman.
But all the cases recorded outside Europe concerned cows imported from Britain. So far, there are no confirmed cases outside Europe of native animals becoming infected with the disease. Yet the World Health Organisation believes that could soon change and they will be holding a conference on the subject later this year.
Dr Francois Meslin of the WHO says their concerns are based on information about exports of British animals and animal products to non-European countries:
'We managed to get access to data from the customs and excise of the UK -amounts of stuff which had been exported during the period 1985 to 1999. That doesn't mean that we currently know if there are cases or not, we are just suspecting that because potentially infected stuff was exported during a period when infectivity [sic] was high in the British herd, cases might occur in these countries.'
| 'So far, there are no confirmed cases outside Europe of native animals becoming infected with the disease. Yet the World Health Organisation believes that could soon change.' | |
Beef Bans
Many non-European countries have taken measures to prevent BSE crossing their borders. The United States imposed a ban on British beef and animal feeds as long ago as 1991. More recently, countries including China, Japan, Australia, Argentina and Saudi Arabia have closed their doors to all European Union beef and animal feed in light of the current crisis.
But these bans could have come too late and there are also concerns that cattle byproducts are still legal in certain vaccines and medicines used around the world. Fears of variant CJD - the human form of BSE - have prompted some countries to ban human blood products, like plasma, from Britain. And the United States won't allow people to donate blood who've spent six months or more in Britain since the BSE outbreak. This ban may soon be extended to visits to other European countries.
BSE Worldwide
The WHO says there is no evidence to suggest a risk of CJD from donated human blood but they do acknowledge that people's fears are real. It's not clear what the effect of BSE worldwide could be. It has been suggested that developing countries could be badly hit because they don't have the resources for early detection of the disease.
But according to Francois Meslin you need more specific circumstances for BSE to become a problem and in fact developed countries could be more at risk:
'To get an epidemic of the level of that observed in the UK, especially in the early 90s you need a country which has an important livestock industry, which has a rendering industry and which has animal feeding practices which include the use of meat and bone meal derived from rendering. And those conditions are existing in most highly developed countries.'
Because of the long incubation period of BSE and because of inconsistencies in implementing preventative measures, it will be some time before the full extent of the BSE problem is known. But the WHO believes it is highly likely that this disease has spread to other continents.
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| Beef Seizure |
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Thousands of kilos of beef destined for the food chain were impounded earlier this month by enforcement officers carrying out anti-BSE controls in Northern Ireland.
The German beef had been seized at two abattoir-cutting plants in Newry, County Down, after spinal cord was discovered in two consignments.
Spinal cord is on the list of specified risk material, which, under EU law, must be removed from cattle aged over 12 months immediately after slaughter. |
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