Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) has struck again in Germany, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) has reported.
The notification takes the German BSE tally to two with both animals coming from farms lying in eastern Brandenburg, close to the Polish border.
Specialist have emphasised that the atypical type of the disease is not associated with feeding and that neither cows threatened human health via the food chain due to detection and destruction.
National BSE Surveillance efforts, which identified the same rare form of the disease back on 16 January, yielded positive tests from an eleven year old cow – now destroyed – during routine slaughterhouse inspections.
Both cows were over ten years old at slaughter and neither entered the food chain, the OIE has clarified.
The OIE added: “The epidemiological investigation identified eight offspring cattle, three of which were already slaughtered, one of which has been fallen and four of which have been traded to another Member State.”
A raft of measures are being applied to the Prötzel 700 cow operation including disinfection, movement controls and screening.
