BSE-Infected Beef Cow Found in Alberta

Friday, February 13th, 2015

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has confirmed Canada’s first case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) since 2011 in a beef cow from Alberta.

In a statement late Thursday, the CFIA said the case was detected through the national BSE surveillance program. An investigation has been launched seeking to confirm the age of the animal, its history and how it became infected. The agency is also looking for information on the feed the animal consumed during the first year of its life. No part of the animal’s carcass entered the human food or animal feed systems

From a trade standpoint, Canada remains a “controlled risk” country, as recognized by the World Organization for Animal Health, so the agency says it should not affect current exports of cattle or beef. The 2003 discovery of the first case of mad cow disease on a Canadian farm caused many countries to halt imports of Canadian beef. Most countries have since resumed beef trade with Canada, despite the discovery of more cases since then. Mad cow disease is believed to be spread when cattle eat protein rendered from the brains and spines of infected cattle or sheep. Canada banned that practice in 1997.

The CFIA tightened feed rules in 2007 and said the moves should help eliminate the disease nationally within a decade, although the agency has cautioned it still expected to discover the occasional new case.

The CFIA says it will conduct a “trace out” to find animals of equivalent risk. These animals will be ordered destroyed and tested for BSE.

There is currently no way to accurately test for the fatal neurological disease in live animals, so testing is done on the brains of deceased animals. The national BSE surveillance program has a mandated testing target of 30 thousand head annually.

The Canadian cattle sector was devastated following the discovery of the first domestic case of BSE in Alberta in 2003, as export markets closed their borders to Canadian beef and cattle. Canada’s most recent case of BSE was in 2011 in a dairy cow in Alberta. A fresh discovery of BSE may not close borders to Canadian beef, given Canada’s tougher measures, but it could delay the country’s efforts to upgrade its international risk status from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).

(T4, D1)