November 28, 2006

Spain hopes to get rid of mad cow disease by 2010

Spain hopes to eliminate mad cow disease from the country by 2010, announced the country's top veterinary officer.

With about 668 cases of BSE, or mad cow disease, reported in the country since the year 2000, Spain is currently ranked no.4 in terms of BSE "prevalence" in Europe, said Juan Jose Badiola, president of the College of Veterinarians.

Badiola said that since 2003 the number of cases had been dropping, with only 55 reported so far this year. However, the country was working on eradicating the disease altogether in the next four or five years, he said adding that a third of cases had occurred in the verdant and rainy north-western region of Galicia.

A rare, but fatal, form of the disease in humans, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, is linked to eating meat products contaminated with the brain-wasting BSE.

The disease was first reported in Britain in the mid-1980s.