Scientists publish final conclusions on geographical BSE risk

The Scientific Steering Committee (SSC) of the EU published 1 August 2000 its final opinion on the geographical Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy risk (BSE) together with detailed assessment reports for 23 countries.

The analysis is based on a qualitative model developed by the SSC that was applied to information provided voluntarily by these countries. In all countries where BSE is already found (United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, France, Portugal, Switzerland and Denmark), the geographical BSE risk has tended to stabilise or decrease since 1994 or 1996. The SSC came to the conclusion that BSE is likely to be present at levels below the detection limits of their surveillance systems in Italy, Spain and Germany and unlikely but not excluded in Austria, Finland and Sweden. With the exception of Switzerland, actual cases of BSE have not been discovered in any of the nine third countries that were assessed so far.

The SSC came to the conclusion that it was highly unlikely that BSE could be present in Australia, Chile, Norway, New Zealand, Argentina and Paraguay. The SSC considered that it is still unlikely, but cannot be excluded that BSE is present in the USA and Canada.