March 22, 2007

Vietnam assures no mad cow contamination on cattle feed
 

After rejecting entry of 70 containers of bovine meat and bone meal (MBM) suspected to contain mad cow disease, a senior Vietnamese official Tuesday (March 20) assured no such feed has entered Vietnam. 

Hoang Van Nam, deputy head of the National Animal Health Department told Thanh Nien no MBM shipments have entered Vietnam and that the country has never recorded a case of mad cow disease.

Nam also absolved 10 companies which imported the MBM - a powder-like brown livestock feed - saying the producers are to blame since they claimed it originated from chicken and pig bones.

Information from Indonesia has cautioned Vietnamese authorities to block the dubious containers which came from Spain, Italia, Germany, Austria and France, countries ravaged by the cattle disease.

The shipments were forced to be re-exported from both the Ho Chi Minh City and Hai Phong ports.

Nam said without Indonesia's advice, the country might have seized the shipments two days late though Vietnam officials have already been alerted on the cargo through its constant tabs with the World Organisation for Animal Health.

He said tests will be done more frequently on suspicious shipments, and importers have agreed to bear the testing costs running to VND3 million ($187.5) per sample.

Since 1998, Vietnam has banned MBM imports from countries with mad cow disease, namely Spain, Italia, Germany, France, Austria, Japan, the US, Canada, the Czech Republic, Demark, Belgium, and Slovakia.