UN quick to allay fears over mad cow deaths

ROME - Testing for mad cow disease is catching cases of the lethal brain-wasting disorder, the United Nations said this week, after new discoveries of BSE-related cases.

An outbreak in Canadian cattle, the first incidence of a goat with the disorder and Japan's first death from the human variant, prompted a UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) statement aimed at allaying fears.

"The three cases in Canada and the one case in the US from an imported animal are isolated incidents," said FAO expert Andrew Speedy. "These cases were detected because of the testing procedures that are now in place."

In the last 10 years 148 people have died of the human version of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), almost all in Britain.

Japan announced its first vCJD death last week and suggested that the man had contracted the disease while in Britain in 1989.

Confirmation that a goat slaughtered in 2002 had BSE was the first time the disease had been found in a species other than cows.

The FAO said the BSE-infected goat was one example in millions and it was born before Europe imposed a total ban on feeding of meat and bonemeal to livestock in January 2001.

The FAO urged all countries to step up controls on animal feed that can spread the infection and to eliminate so-called specified risk materials, such as brains and spinal cords, from the food chain and ensure that if meat and bonemeal is fed to pigs or poultry that it be handled separately from cattle feed lines.

- REUTERS