France finds 1 case of mad cow disease
Print Edition
FRANCE has found a case of mad cow disease, its first since 2011, the agriculture ministry said yesterday, calling the occurrence “isolated” and saying consumers were not at risk.
The case of BSE was detected in the northeastern region of the Ardennes, near the Belgian border, the ministry said in a statement.
“A suspected case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), detected in a five-year-old cow which died prematurely at a cattle farm in Ardennes, was confirmed on March 23 by the European Union reference laboratory,” it said.
The announcement comes at a difficult time in France’s key farming sector where the beef, pork and milk sectors have seen prices collapse due to falling sales to China and especially a Russian embargo on most Western food imports in retaliation for sanctions over the Ukraine crisis.
The crunch in French agriculture has been compounded by a price war with wholesalers and sparked months of angry protests. The agriculture ministry said that the Ardennes BSE case had been reported to the European Commission and the Paris-based veterinary watchdog, the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE).
It also sought to reassure consumers. “The detection of this case has no impact for the consumer,” it said.
About 100 cattle will be slaughtered within a month, as per the rules in such cases, following the discovery of the BSE case, the ministry said.
The affected cows would be those aged one year older or younger than the infected cow that died and which may have been exposed to the same feeding source, the ministry said.
“That makes about 100 cattle” out of the 400 cows of the same breed at the Ardennes farm, for which the breeder will be compensated, it said.
On Tuesday, the ministry had announced a suspected BSE case, picked up in mid-March in a dead cow that had been sent for destruction and therefore not destined for human consumption.
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