Mad cow disease, which appeared for the first time in the world in the eighties, has returned to the fore once more, and spread at that time to a number of European countries, starting with Britain, and resulted in the death of hundreds of people and the deaths of thousands of livestock around the world.
During the past few days, many countries rushed to stop their imports of Brazilian cows, due to the discovery of a case of mad cow disease in the state of Para, on February 20, which raised concerns regarding the vital livestock sector in Egypt, which is considered one of the world’s largest importers of Brazilian meat. .
The announcement of the discovery of mad cow disease sparked alarm in Egypt, and the government tried to move quickly to investigate the extent of the disease, which is related to a fatal and incurable human disease.
What is mad cow disease?
The official name for mad cow disease is bovine spongiform encephalitis. It is a fatal disease that has been linked to a fatal brain disease that also affects humans, known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD).
Scientists believe that mad cow disease is caused by prions, which are faulty copies of normal proteins that somehow force their counterparts to take an abnormal form that gradually attacks and destroys the brain and nervous system, according to the American “Forbes” magazine.
Eating contaminated meat or other products from cattle infected with BSE, excluding dairy products, is believed to be the cause of CJD.
Symptoms of CJD include psychological symptoms and behavioral changes, as well as movement deficits, memory disturbances, and cognitive impairment.
The so-called “classical stereotypical mad cow disease”, which is the most dangerous, occurs due to animals eating contaminated feed, while another type called “atypical mad cow disease” is a natural form of the disease, according to the US Food and Drug Administration website.
When did the disease appear?
Mad cow disease was first discovered in the United Kingdom in 1986. About 180,000 heads of cattle were affected in Britain as a result of the outbreak of the disease, from 1986 to 2001, following which it spread to the United States of America, Canada and France, and then to many countries of the world, What devastated farming communities, according to CNN.
Over the years, 4.5 million cattle have been slaughtered to contain the spread of the disease, according to the Associated Press.
The number of cases of mad cow disease fell following a ban was imposed on feed that included meat and bone meal from infected cows believed to cause the disease.
What is the latest developments in the disease around the world?
The Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture confirmed a case of mad cow disease in late February. And the announcement of Brazil, which is the largest exporter of beef in the world, prompted many countries to suspend imports of Brazilian meat, led by China, Thailand, Iran, Russia and Jordan.
And the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture tried to reassure the countries of the world, Thursday, by declaring that the infection was “atypical,” citing an investigation conducted by the World Organization for Animal Health (WOAH), according to “Forbes”.
Atypical means that an abnormal protein forms spontaneously, which occurs naturally in very few cases in cattle, especially among older cows.
The World Organization for Animal Health says there is no evidence that atypical variants of mad cow disease are transmissible and experts do not believe they pose a significant risk to humans, although this is not known for certain due to the rarity of such cases.
But despite the announcement, a ban on Brazilian beef from China, by far its biggest customer, might be devastating for it. Bans on atypical conditions are usually temporary, but it can still last for months. It took China three months to lift its latest ban on Brazilian beef following another atypical case.
What is the position of Egypt?
While Egypt relies on Brazil for its frozen meat imports by between 40 and 50 percent, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics, many have wondered regarding the extent to which the Egyptian market was affected by the discovery of mad cow disease in Brazil.
Commenting on the state of concern raised in Egypt due to the continued import of Brazilian meat, the head of the Veterinary Services Authority at the Egyptian Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, Dr. Ehab Saber, said in media statements, on Saturday, that “Egypt continues to import Brazilian meat.” He added, “The Scientific Committee decided to continue importing animals and meat in accordance with the established and followed veterinary health controls, and there is no cause for concern.”
In line with what was published on international websites and newspapers, Saber confirmed that “the case of mad cow disease that appeared in Brazil on a 9-year-old male calf is not dangerous, but it is a defect in the animal’s brain that is not contagious to animals or humans.”
