Canada Confirms New Mad Cow Case*

Thursday May 3, 2007 4:31 AM

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) - Canadian authorities said Wednesday
they had confirmed the country's 10th case of mad cow disease since 2003.

In the latest case, the disease was discovered in a dairy cow in the
western province of British Columbia. The Canadian Food Inspection
Agency said no part of the animal entered the human food or animal feed
systems.

The agency said it appears the 5-year-old cow was infected during its
first year of life. It is now checking other animals born around that
time to try to track down the source of the infection.

Nine previous cases of mad cow, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy,
have been detected in Canadian cattle since May 2003, when the discovery
of an Alberta cow with the disease caused the United States to slam the
border shut to cattle exports entirely.

Eating meat products contaminated with BSE has been linked to more than
150 human deaths, mostly in Britain, from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob
Disease, a rare and nerve disease.

There have been three confirmed cases of mad cow disease in U.S. animals.