The Ministry of Agriculture has confirmed a case of mad cow in a cattle farm in the Ardennes.
The potential case of “mad cow” in the Ardennes has just been confirmed by the Ministry of Agriculture. The suspicion was established on March 17 by the national reference laboratory of the National Health Security Agency (ANSES) following samples taken from the animal at rendering.
The 5-year-old Salers cow died prematurely on the farm. As required by law, she underwent a series of tests to determine the cause of her death – or at least, rule out certain pathologies. The sample from the deceased animal was sent to the European Reference Laboratory (LRUE) in Great Britain, for bovine spongiform encephalitis (BSE). Without waiting for the deadline, set between eight and ten days, the laboratory gave its verdict.
1st case since 2011
This is the first case of BSE of this type detected in France since 2011. In May 2015, France regained its status of “negligible risk” country for BSE, granted by the World Organization for Animal Health ( GOOSE). A decision that allowed the reopening of the doors of certain markets for the export of French cattle, such as Singapore, Vietnam, South Africa, Canada or Saudi Arabia.
Appeared in the 1980s in the United Kingdom, the disease has spread to many countries in Europe and around the world due to the use of contaminated animal meal in feed given to cattle. Suspected of being at the origin of a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans, it had caused a crisis in the bovine sector and led to the ban on animal meal.
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