Netherlands finds case of mad cow disease, says it won't endanger food safety

　　Chinanews.com, The Hague, February 2. The Dutch authorities reported on February 1 that a case of mad cow disease had been found, and said that the diseased cow had not flowed into the market and would not endanger food safety.

　　On the same day, Dutch Minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality Adema sent a letter to the Second House of the Dutch Parliament (House of Representatives), notifying that a dairy cow died on the farm and was sent to a laboratory for testing. It was found to be suffering from mad cow disease.

　　The letter did not disclose the name and location of the farm, but only stated that the sick cows had not flowed into the market and "would not pose a danger to food safety." After the mad cow disease was detected on January 30, the authorities immediately sealed off the farm involved and launched an investigation into the case.

　　This is the second case of mad cow disease found in the Netherlands since 2011.

Adema said in the letter that since 1997, a total of 88 cases of typical mad cow disease have been found in the Netherlands, and the case in 2011 is a relatively rare case of atypical mad cow disease.

　　Mad cow disease, also known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, is a disease that harms the central nervous system of cattle. Cattle are mainly infected by eating feed containing or contaminated with prions; once humans eat beef, bovine spinal cord and other products from sick cattle, they may be infected fatally. Encephalopathy Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.

　　BSE can be divided into two types: typical and atypical. Atypical BSE is spontaneous and commonly occurs in older cows. According to the statistics of the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH), since the first case of BSE in the world was reported in the UK in 1986, there have been a total of Cases of mad cow disease have been reported in 26 countries and regions.

　　According to statistics from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, from 1996 to 2015, a total of 226 people died of variant CJD (confirmed cases of human infection with mad cow disease), including three deaths in the Netherlands. of primary concern for international trade in cattle products.

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