November 8, 2004

Bulgaria's Mad Cow Disease Test Not Officially Recognised By EU

As the mad cow test used in Bulgaria is not officially recognised by the European Union, beef meat sold in the country since June 2004 has not been certified free of the disease, according to mad-cow expert Roumen Valchovski.

"Beef and sheep meat have been tested. But certificates were not issued because the test used has not been officially recognised by the European Union. Tons of meat went to the market in violation of the European norms", said Valchovski.

Bulgaria has been using one of the five tests approved by the European Commission since 2001. In June 2004 the country switched to a Dutch test not yet recognised by the commission's veterinary control service.

"The Dutch test is more precise, more rapid than the tests already approved by the EU and is in its last stage of EU pre-certification trials", said director of Bulgaria's laboratory for detecting mad cow, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) Raiko Pechev.

Kiril Kirov, director of the government's veterinary service stated that "the import and usage of the Dutch test is a violation of the EU requirements".

"The use of a test, which has not been approved either in Holland or in any other EU country is a time-bomb", Roumen Petkov, director of the state's food veterinary control service, pointed out.

"Nobody can keep their eyes shut anymore about such a serious problem. We are now awaiting the results of a police investigation of the case in order to find out who should be held responsible", said deputy agriculture minister Boiko Boev.

In the mid 1990s the British government announced a probable link between BSE and variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), the human form of mad cow disease, which can cause personality change, loss of body function, and eventually death.

No cases of mad cow disease have been registered in Bulgaria, where beef meat began to be closely examined for the disease in 2001.