A case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, known as “mad cow disease” and potentially fatal to humans, has been identified on the carcass of a cow in the Netherlands, the Dutch government said on Wednesday.
The infected cow “has not entered the food chain and does not pose a food safety concern”, Agriculture Minister Piet Adema said.
The eight-year-old animal was affected by an “atypical” variant of the disease.
The “classic” form of the disease is spread by animal meal contained in cattle feed, in the event that it is contaminated by one or more carcasses of sick animals.
The “atypical” form, which would pose less of a risk to humans, occurs sporadically in older animals. The Netherlands had reported the last case of the “atypical” variant in 2011.
This bovine disease can cause in humans, by ingestion of meat or offal, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a fatal neurodegenerative syndrome.
The Dutch services have isolated the farm concerned, in the province of South Holland, but whose exact location has not been made public, and are looking for the source of the infection, said the minister.
Any cattle that have come into contact with the sick cow or shared the same feed is tested, slaughtered, and its carcass destroyed, according to the same source.
“In total, 13 cattle were found, they will be slaughtered and tested,” according to the Ministry of Agriculture.
Mad cow disease first emerged in Britain in the 1980s and has spread to many countries in Europe and the rest of the world, causing a crisis in the beef industry.