The Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture confirms two cases of mad cow and suspends exports to China

The Ministry of Agriculture confirmed this Saturday the occurrence of two atypical cases of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), known as mad cow disease. As a result, the Brazilian government decided to temporarily suspend beef exports to China. The mad cow cases were confirmed in slaughterhouses in Nova Canaã do Norte (MT) and Belo Horizonte. risk were completed even before the issuance of the final result by the reference laboratory of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) in Alberta, Canada. Therefore, there is no risk to human and animal health”, says the note in the folder. These are the fourth and fifth cases of atypical mad cow registered in more than 23 years of surveillance for the disease. Brazil has never registered the occurrence of cases of classic mad cow, according to Agriculture. Cases of atypical mad cow occur because of a mutation in a single animal. The classic cases, when the animal is contaminated because of its feeding, could affect more than one ...