A cow that recently died on a Dutch farm has tested positive for mad cow disease, the Dutch government announced Wednesday, in a rare case of the cattle disease that can cause a fatal brain disease in people who eat it. contaminated meat.
The farm where the cow died has been sealed off, Agriculture Minister Piet Adema said in a letter to lawmakers. He added that the infected animal “did not enter the food chain and does not constitute a food safety risk.”
Formally called bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, the disease first broke out in the late 1980s among cattle in Britain. Hundreds of people fell ill with the human equivalent, a brain disorder called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and many died. Over the years, 4.5 million head of cattle have been culled to contain the spread.
AFRICAN HEALTH OFFICIALS SAY COUNTRIES WITH CHOLERA OUTBREAKS DO NOT HAVE ‘IMMEDIATE ACCESS’ TO VACCINES
A cow that died on a Dutch farm has tested positive for mad cow disease. Authorities said the cow did not risk food safety and was sealed.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
The number of BSE cases plummeted after bans were introduced on foods that included meat and bone meal from infected cows believed to cause the disease.
The last case detected in the Netherlands was in 2011.
Tests on the 8-year-old cow from a farm in the province of South Holland established that the dead animal had a natural form of the disease called atypical BSE, the government said later on Wednesday, and not so-called classical BSE, which is caused by animals eating contaminated food.
Food safety authorities are conducting an investigation to trace any offspring from the dead animal, as well as any cows that ate the same feed or grew up with it. They will be culled, tested for BSE and destroyed, the ministry said.
