Brussels, 17/06/2004 (Agence Europe) - The EU Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health has agreed to a European Commission proposal clarifying current rules on fighting BSE. Until now, the 2001 regulation stipulated that in ESB detected cases, the slaughter and destruction of all bovine and "cohort" animals infected (animals of the same age born or reared in the same herd as the BSE case). In compliance with new rules, only animals of the in infected cohort will have to be destroyed.
In actual fact, most Member States were already suing a derogation to limit cohort culling. The new rules will therefore clarify this situation by making cohort culling the rule rather than the derogation. BSE eradication rules are not more in line with the recommendations of the International Office of Epizootics (IOE).