First BSE case hits Greece

Greece said on Monday it had confirmed its first case of mad cow disease and had destroyed the herd to which the five-year-old dairy cow belonged.

Greek Agriculture Minister George Anomeritis said a cow had tested positive for the disease at a slaughterhouse in the northern Greek city of Serres during what are now routine examinations conducted under European Union rules.

It was the furthest east in Europe that a confirmed case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), linked to the human brain-wasting Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, had been found.

Anomeritis said the Holstein cow came from a farm in the northern Greek area of Kilkis and that the whole herd of about 150 cattle had now been destroyed.

A veterinarian at the slaughterhouse told Greek television the cow was bred in Greece from a cow imported from the Netherlands.

Anomeritis said that the cow had not been fed bone meal, blamed by many for the spread of BSE, during 1996 and 1997 when it possibly became infected.

The minister said the cow had not shown any symptoms of the disease but had been identifed during regular testing, increasingly strict after January when new EU rules applied.

EU rules now require all cattle over the age of 30 months to be tested before their meat can enter the food chain.

Anomeritis said only one in a batch of 34 brain samples tested had been positive.

The discovery follows the single case reported in the Czech Republic last month, bringing BSE into eastern Europe for the first time.

Source: Reuters