April 10, 2008
Mad cow disease linked to two deaths in Spain
The Spanish health ministry on Monday (April 7) that the deaths of two people in central Spain in the past three months are the first fatalities of mad cow disease since 2005.
The two victims -- a woman aged 51 and a man, 41 -- apparently contracted the brain-wasting disease before Spain and the European Union tightened controls on meat production in the mid-1990s following the appearance of the illness, the ministry said in a statement.
The ministry however said these cases "have no epidemiological consequences¡and do not citizens' health at risk."
Spain recorded its first and only human death from brain-wasting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in June 2005 when a 26-year-old woman succumbed in Madrid.
More than 200 people around the world are suspected to have died, most of them in Britain, from the human variant of the disease, which was first discovered in 1996.
Experts believe the disease was caused by using infected parts of cattle to make feed for other cattle and eating meat from infected animals can cause the human variant of the fatal brain-wasting disease.
The 27-member EU, which includes Spain, banned high-risk materials such as spinal cord from use in feed and tighter labeling was also introduced.
Agriculture Minister Elena Espinosa sought to convey a message of calm, saying that "we are not in the circumstances that we were many years ago and that meat was consumed years ago before any type of control was established, in Spain or in the European Union".
The latest Spanish victims of the disease are from the central Castilla-Leon region. One died on December 28 and the other on February 7, according to the region's health department.
The health ministry said their deaths were only now being reported because post-mortem testing for the disease is a lengthy process.
"There may possibly be more cases in the European Union but always as a consequence of what happened over a decade ago," it said in the statement.
