BSE: Diseased cow will not lead to immediate slaughter of entire herd

Czech farmers will no longer have to slaughter an entire herd if individual cattle contract mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE), Czech Television reported on Tuesday. With Czech herds often totalling several hundred cows, the Czech Republic has been opposed to EU regulations calling for the immediate slaughter of the entire herd when a single case of BSE is confirmed. In the last 3.5 years, 1,591 cows were slaughtered because of nine confirmed cases of BSE. At a meeting of agriculture ministers in Brussels this week, Czech Agriculture Minister Jaroslav Palas managed to convince Brussels to allow cows from a herd with one confirmed case to continue to produce milk. Since the beginning of 2001, over 570,000 Czech animals have been tested for BSE. The most recent case of detected BSE, the eleventh case in the country's history, was detected in South Bohemia on April 30.