Case of mad cow disease found in Switzerland

A case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, has been discovered in a cow in Switzerland for the first time in several years, a so-called atypical variant, the Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office announced on Monday.

"Unlike the classical form, atypical BSE can occur spontaneously and without any connection to animal meal in feed," the office said. "The carcass was incinerated and therefore poses no risk to other animals or humans."

The case was discovered during routine BSE surveillance in the canton of Graubünden. It involved a 12-year-old cow registered for slaughter.

BSE attacks the brain substance of cattle. In classical BSE, animals become infected by being fed animal meal containing prions.

The consumption of meat contaminated with BSE can trigger the fatal Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in humans.

The feeding of meat-and-bone meal to ruminants has been banned in Switzerland since 1990, and it is also prohibited in many other countries.

At the end of the 1980s, BSE occurred mainly in Britain. There, more than 180,000 cases occurred due to the feeding to animals of contaminated meat-and-bone meal.

In Germany, a cow was first diagnosed with BSE in 2000. There were some 400 cases in total, including three atypical cases. The most recent was detected in Bavaria in 2021.

Only in February, a case of atypical mad cow disease was reported from the Netherlands. The meat had not entered the food chain, according to the country's Ministry of Agriculture. The last time such a case occurred in the Netherlands was in 2011.

Also in February, Brazil had suspended the export of beef after a case of atypical mad cow disease.