August 12, 2004

 

 

Canada Broadens Coverage Of Mad Cow Tests
 

Canada has increased its tests of old, dead, and sick cattle for mad cow disease to assess the prevalence of the brain-wasting illness, a Canadian Food Inspection Agency official said Tuesday.

 

Canada has tested 4,839 cattle for the disease so far in 2004, all of which were negative. The agency is on target to reach a goal of 8,000 tests by the end of the year, Darcy Undseth said.

 

"It certainly is a challenge," said Undseth, a veterinary disease control specialist overseeing mad cow disease control measures in Western Canada. "The animals that we're interested in are primarily staying on farms," Undseth said.

 

Officials used to sample old and sick animals for the disease at slaughterhouses and rendering plants.

 

But since Canada's first home-grown case of mad cow disease was found in May 2003, large slaughterhouses have bought only young cattle because of trade bans on meat from livestock older than 30 months.

 

Rendering plants also faced shrinking markets for protein made from cattle. Some have stopped accepting deadstock, while others charge farmers a fee. Volumes have dropped 70 percent to 80 percent, Undseth said.

 

Veterinary officials will encourage farmers to report old, sick, and dead animals by helping them cover the costs of shipping and disposing of them, Undseth said.

 

Program details should be ready by the fall, when farmers begin to bring cattle off pastures, he said.

 

Starting in 2005, the agency plans to test at least 30,000 animals per year for the disease - a level that will allow it to detect one animal with mad cow disease out of a million healthy livestock, Undseth said.

 

That will be roughly equivalent to a U.S. surveillance program, expanded on June 1, with a goal of getting at least 268,500 samples by the end of 2005, he said.

 

"Statistically, we would achieve pretty well with the same amount of testing, as they have seven or eight times the (adult) cattle that we do," Undseth said.

 

The first U.S. case of mad cow disease was discovered last December in Washington state in a Holstein dairy cow, which was born in Canada.

 

In 2003, Canada tested 5,500 cattle for the disease, including animals destroyed in the course of its investigation of the first mad cow case. The agency tested more than 3,000 animals for the disease in 2002, up from about 2,000 in 2001 and 800 in 2000.

 

Canada's testing numbers have been above requirements set by an international animal health body, Undseth said.

 

The agency will update its testing progress on its Web site each Wednesday.