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Korea may have to halt the resumption of beef imports from the U.S. after the U.S. Agriculture Department announced on Monday that a cow at an Alabama farm tested positive for mad cow disease or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). The department's chief veterinarian said the afflicted animal was a beef cow but stressed it hadn't entered the food chain.
The latest discovery is the third confirmed case in the U.S. in 27 months. BSE is a neurodegenerative disease, fatal to cows and humans, that is spread by a type of protein. The brain disease is believed to be transmitted by cattle feed contaminated with livestock remains, a practice the U.S. government has banned since 1997.
Korea had agreed to partially lift a ban on U.S. beef and was planning to resume imports as early as this month but may now indefinitely halt such plans. The import ban was implemented in late 2003.
The Agriculture and Forestry Ministry is closely monitoring the latest outbreak. The animal that contracted BSE, U.S. investigators say, appears to be at least 10 years old. The age of the cow has an ominous significance for Korea because it agreed to block U.S. beef imports only when the disease is detected in cattle born after April 1998.
Some U.S. veterinary experts have raised concerns that this may not be an isolated case and that additional cows may likely have shared the same contaminated feed.
Arirang News
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