C B C . C A N e w s | May 24, 2003
OTTAWA-- Three more farms in Alberta were quarantined Saturday as investigators widened their search for the cause of one case of mad cow disease in the province.
Sixteen farms are now under quarantine including 11 in Alberta, two in Saskatchewan and three in B.C.
At a news conference Saturday, Alberta's agriculture minister urged Canadians to keep the situation in perspective.
"This is one cow," said Shirley McClellan. "There's no indication of any other cows being involved."
The 16 farms combined have more than 1,000 head of cattle. "I would not say just today every animal on those farms should be abolished, because we don't know what the linkage is yet," McClellan said.
Tests are being conducted on the brain tissue of 267 animals connected with the herd where the infected cow finished out its life.
Results of those tests will probably be available on Monday, McClellan said.
Focus on feed
Officials are still trying to figure out how the cow became infected. It was probably given contaminated feed, said Brian Evans, chief veterinary officer with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
It's not clear whether that happened before a 1997 ban on putting rendered cows into cattle feed in Canada, he said.
It's possible the feed came from another country. The cow may also have been imported, he said.
Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), attacks brain tissue, making it spongy and full of holes.
It's believed that people who eat meat from BSE-infected cows have a slight risk of developing Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, a human variation of the illness.
"None of the animal went into the food system," federal Agriculture Minister Lyle Vanclief reiterated on Saturday. "The system worked. That's the way it's supposed to work and it did work that way and we can all have confidence in our system because of that," he told CBC Newsworld.
The carcass of the infected cow went to a rendering plant to become poultry feed. Officials traced some of the product to three small farms in British Columbia.
"It's against regulations in Canada and it's strictly monitored that any products rendered from ruminants (cattle)& cannot be fed back to a ruminant, " said Vanclief.
Federal officials ordered the B.C. farms to guarantine all of their animals in the event any cows inadvertently ate the feed, increasing their risk of contracting BSE.C B C . C A N e w s:
