Another cow found with Mad Cow disease in Canada

May 3 2007

Canadian officials say another case of Mad Cow disease has been found in a dairy cow in British Columbia.

According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, has been confirmed in a 5½-year-old dairy cow in the province of British Columbia.

The agency says it has the carcass of the animal and no part of it had entered the human food or animal feed systems.

This is Canada's tenth case of mad cow disease in it's cattle since 2003, and is the second in less than three months.

In April last year another B.C. dairy cow was found to have mad cow disease, which the food inspection agency said was caused by contaminated feed.

Many of Canada's cases of BSE have been blamed on exposure to contaminated feed.

The Agency says the animal's age, combined with the average incubation period of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), indicates the cow was exposed to a very small amount of infected material, probably during its first year of life.

Other animals from the same herd are being traced in an effort to determine how the cow became infected.

The latest case was detected via a national surveillance program that targets cattle most at risk; about 160,000 animals have been tested since 2003 through this program.

Although a ban on feed that may contain animal products takes effect in Canada on July 12, the Food Inspection Agency said it still expects to find a small number of BSE cases over the next 10 years.

Canada is aiming to totally eliminate BSE from its cattle herd within 10 years; the disease has caused major problems for beef and cattle exports to the United States.

Although the U.S. has allowed imports of Canadian beef from young cattle since September 2003, as well as young live cattle starting in 2005, it continues to ban live cattle over the age of 30 months as well as beef from those animals.