US traces its first mad cow case to Canada

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, December 28, 2003

US traces its first mad cow case to Canada

Preliminary investigations indicated that the first cow in the United States infected with mad cow disease was imported into the country from neighboring Canada, US officials said on Saturday.

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Preliminary investigations indicated that the first cow in the United States infected with mad cow disease was imported into the country from neighboring Canada, US officials said on Saturday.

The diseased milk cow was one of a herd of 74 cattle that were shipped from Alberta, Canada, into Idaho in 2001, Dr. Ron DeHaven, chief veterinarian from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), told reporters.

"These animals were all dairy cattle and entered the US only about two or two-and-a-half years ago, so most of them are still likely alive," DeHaven said.

Mad cow disease, formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, was first reported in Britain in 1986. Canada found a case of mad cow disease in Alberta in May, 2003.

The infected cow in the US was diagnosed positive to mad cow disease by the USDA's National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa, after being culled from a herd of 4,000 cattle in a farm near Mabton in Washington state and then slaughtered on Dec. 9.

Tissue samples were sent to the Veterinary Laboratories Agency in Weybridge, England, which confirmed the earlier US readings.

After quarantining the 4,000 cattle in the Mabton farm where the infected cow stayed before it was slaughtered, the USDA on Friday announced that a second farm in Washington state which contains a calf recently born to the cow was also put under quarantine.

The facility where the cow was slaughtered has recalled an estimated 10,000 pounds (4.5 tons) of beef from the infected cow and from 19 others slaughtered on the same day.

According to USDA officials, meat linked to the infected cow was sold in four US states: Washington, Oregon, California and Nevada.

Five major grocery chains in Oregon and Washington have already pulled ground beef from their shelves, The Washington Post said Saturday in a report.

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