BSE case confirmed on a farm in Scotland
Published: Friday, May 10th 2024, 14:10
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In Scotland, the regional government has confirmed a case of mad cow disease (BSE). "I am reassuring farmers and the public that the risk from this isolated case is minimal," said Sheila Voas, Chief Veterinary Officer for the UK, on Friday. The regional government announced that movement restrictions had been imposed on certain animals as a precautionary measure.
The case on a farm in the south-west Scottish county of Ayrshire was identified as a result of routine monitoring and strict control measures. The animal in question had not entered the human food chain. There is no risk to humans, the authorities emphasized. In the UK, a case of BSE was last detected in 2021 on a farm in Somerset in south-west England. In March 2023, the atypical variant was diagnosed in a cow in Cornwall.
BSE is the abbreviation for bovine spongiform encephalopathy. The disease causes the brain substance of cattle to regress. In classic BSE, animals become infected by being fed meat and bone meal containing prions. The consumption of meat contaminated with BSE can trigger the fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.
At the end of the 1980s, BSE occurred primarily in the UK. There were more than 180,000 cases there due to the feeding of contaminated meat and bone meal.
In Switzerland, the atypical form of BSE was last detected in one cow in March and one in July 2023. In contrast to the classical form, atypical BSE can occur spontaneously and without any connection to meat-and-bone meal.
©Keystone/SDA
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