Impact of BSE
Geographic distribution
Between November 1986 and September 2002, approximately 180 900 cases of BSE were confirmed in the United Kingdom (UK). Since 1989, when the first case was reported outside of the UK, cases have appeared in other European countries, and in Israel and Japan, although in relatively small numbers. As BSE is transmitted among cattle through contaminated cattle feed, predicting the spread of BSE requires examination of export data about live cattle who may be infected as well as export data about cattle feed containing rendered bovine tissues.
The British government made BSE a notifiable disease in June 1988. Shortly afterwards, it introduced a ban on the feeding of protein derived from ruminants (e.g. cattle, sheep and goats) to any ruminant.The use of bovine offals in the human food chain considered to pose a potential risk, and was also banned in the UK in 1989. The list of banned bovine offals was revised and expanded on several occasions as new information became available. Cattle in the UK are continuously monitored for BSE in the UK. The number of reports of BSE has been decreasing since 1992. In other countries, including Europe, measures taken, the date of implementation and the extent of enforcement vary from country to country.
More information