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Mad Cow Disease Likely to Occur in Baltic Countries
Mad cow disease will be possibly occur soon in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, the Latvian news agency reported Tuesday.
The governments of the three Baltic countries are now adopting emergency measures to prevent the disease from spreading, the agency added.
Studies conducted by Germany's Ministry of Agriculture showed that young cattle would suffer from mad cow disease if they are fed with feed made from animal bone or fat stuff.
The three Baltic countries have been importing such feed from Germany since 1997. An official of the German agriculture ministry said that the latent period of the mad cow disease ranges from three to six years. So such disease will be possibly occurred in the three countries in the coming years.
Nine types of feed enriched with animal bones imported from the Netherlands and Denmark are now still used to feed young cattle and pigs in Latvia, which has also imported recently 600 head of cattle from the countries suffering mad cow disease.
According to a survey carried out by a governmental department concerned in Latvia , one third of the Latvian population have begun to eat less beef because of fear for the mad cow disease.
The governments of Lithuania and Estonia have also appealed to their people to take precaution measures against the disease and even not to eat confections containing animal gel or other animal stuff.
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