AS the Minister for Health announced that Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease and its new variant had been made notifiable diseases, the Department of Agriculture yesterday announced five new cases of the bovine equivalent, BSE.
And for the first time since the disease was discovered in the national herd in 1989, one of the cases is on a farm where another case was identified in August.
While veterinary experts say there is nothing significant about this first multiple case in an Irish herd, the growing number of cases of BSE in the national herd is creating serious marketing difficulties for the industry.
The first multiple herd infection was in a cow slaughtered a fortnight ago as part of the killing programme operated by the Government when a case is identified.
The first case had been found in a dairy herd of over 350 animals in Co Limerick in August, and the new case emerged when the brains of the other animals on the farm were investigated at the state laboratories in Abbotstown, Co Dublin.
The other new cases were discovered in Tipperary, Limerick and Meath and will involve the slaughter and destruction of nearly 1,100 animals. All the new cases are from dairy herds. Two of the animals are five years old, the other seven and the oldest 10.
So far this year 63 cases of the disease have been discovered on Irish farms, which brings the national total since 1989 to 178. Last year only 16 cases were reported.
A Department of Agriculture spokesman said the scientific investigation of the brains of all the animals on a farm where the disease has been identified has been intensified since March last.
"Until then there was an examination of all the brains from older cows which were most at risk from the disease. Now all the brains are examined," he said.
He added that, in all, the brains of 8,000 animals from herds where BSE was found had been examined, and this was the first time a case of the disease of the central nervous system had been discovered.
"It is important to remember that we have a very low level of BSE. We have 7.4 million animals and less than 180 cases in seven years. In Britain they have had 5,900 cases so far this year," he said.
This week the Department will hold a conference on BSE with its own veterinary staff, the independent veterinary organisations, the farming organisations and the meat trade.
It has decided to use the forum which was set up to run the bovine TB eradication scheme as a vehicle to examine the possible causes and continuing infection of cattle by BSE.
In his statement last night, the Minister for Health, Mr Noonan, said that CJD and nvCJD are now notifiable diseases under the Health Act, 1947.
This system will enable all suspected cases of the diseases to be referred to Cork University Hospital or Beaumont Hospital in Dublin.