No cases of mad cow disease were detected in Chinese cattle in the
latest annual national survey of livestock, the
Ministry of Agriculture
said Thursday.
It
is the third clean bill of health for local cattle and the result
comes hot on the heels of a ban that China slapped on imports of
cattle and cattle products from Canada, where a cow in Alberta
tested positive for the brain-wasting ailment last Tuesday, said
Zhao Weining, a division director of the ministry.
Zhao told China Daily Thursday: "In line with the standards
of the Office International des Epizooties, we have examined more
than 4,000 brain tissues of deceased cattle from farms and
slaughterhouses throughout China over the past three years, and all
the test results were negative.''
The findings of the survey, which have been conducted each year
since 2000, indicated that China's cattle and beef industry was
safe and the chance of an outbreak of mad cow disease --bovine
spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) -- occurring in China was extremely
slim, he said.
Before the case surfaced in Canada, China had imported US$7.7
million worth of live cattle and US$6.3 million worth frozen beef
from Canada between January 2002 and March this year, Michael
Martin, the public information counselor at the Canadian Embassy,
said Thursday.
Zhao said China will enhance its monitoring of Canadian cattle
already in the country, their descendants and embryos.
Samples of any Canadian cattle suspected of showing neurotic
disease symptoms will be sent to the National BSE Laboratory in
Shandong Province in the nation's east for examination, he
said.
The survey in 2002 covered all of Chinese mainland's 31 provinces,
autonomous regions and municipalities, which were each asked to
send 50 to 100 brain samples to the Shandong laboratory or Chinese
University of Agriculture in Beijing.
The check-up focused on imported cattle and their offspring, but
also examined domestic breeds, according to Wang Zhiliang, the
director of the Shandong BSE centre.
China had 128 million head of cattle in early 2002, statistics from
the ministry revealed.
(China Daily May 30, 2003)