IRELAND RECORDED only nine cases of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) this year compared with 23 cases last year, official figures show.
From a high of 333 cases in 2002, there has been a dramatic fall in the disease of the central nervous system of animals which scientists believe was caused by contaminated animal feed.
The disease was first identified in Britain in the mid-1980s. It took years and multiple human deaths and the slaughter of millions of infected animals in Britain before scientists discovered even tiny amounts of contaminated feed could trigger the disease.
Although the feeding of meat and bone meal to ruminants had been banned in the EU from early in the crisis, contamination of feed had continued at feed mills where there was cross-contamination of cattle feed by feed for other animals. When feed at mills and compounders was segregated, there was a dramatic fall in animal infections.
Since 2002, over 700,000 animals per annum were tested in Ireland up to 2008.
Ireland was on May 30th, 2008, declared by the World Animal Health Organisation as having a “controlled risk for BSE”, which was a significant landmark.
The organs in animals where the disease resides continue to be removed from cattle and destroyed before an animal is processed for human consumption.