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The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has confirmed
the UK’s Moderate BSE incidence status, which puts it in line with
other countries and other European Union members.
The European Commission (EC) requested in July 2003 that
EFSA and its Scientific Panel on Biological Hazards gave a scientific
opinion on the United Kingdom’s application to be considered as
BSE Moderate risk country, according to the World Organisation for Animal
Health (OIE) standards and based on modelling assumptions and calculations
as submitted by the UK authorities. Following this request, the EFSA Panel
concluded on 21 April 2004 that the modelling methodology used to calculate
the absolute incidence was statistically sound and that its whole cattle
population could be considered as OIE moderate BSE risk from a date intermediate
between July and December 2004.
In February 2005 the UK authorities forwarded additional
surveillance data up to the end of September 2004 to the EC and the EC
invited EFSA to give a technical advice on these calculations provided
by the UK authorities based on the latest surveillance data and to confirm
if the incidence has passed under the 200 incidence limit.
At its plenary meeting of the 9-10 March 2005 the
EFSA Panel considered the data provided and concluded that these data
confirm the conclusions of the EFSA opinion of April 2004. The experts
of the Panel confirmed that according to the OIE classification the UK
can be considered as a country with a moderate risk status in terms of
BSE for its whole cattle population
[22 Mar 05]
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