A limited amount of research into whether sheep can suffer from a form of BSE is being carried out in the Republic, it emerged yesterday as the British government announced it was looking for the disease in its sheep population.
Britain plans to slaughter 40 million animals if the disease is found there.
The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, said last night his officials had been detecting, monitoring and controlling scrapie in the Irish sheep population, where 120 flocks out of more than 40,000 nationwide had been detected with the disease in the past decade.
Saying this incidence was far below British levels, Mr Walsh said 8,000 random scrapie samples were taken annually at meat plants since 1998 and this would be increased to 15,000 from January 1st. Sheep brain infected with scrapie, which was incorporated into cattle feed, is thought to have been the cause of BSE in cattle in Britain in the early 198Os.
Scientists at the British Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee are to report next month on their work on a possible form of BSE in sheep. So far no cases have been found.
The British Minister for Agriculture said that, because sheep had been given BSE by feeding them infected tissue in laboratory conditions, the Government had to take the precaution of looking for the disease in the national flock.
The Department of Agriculture in Dublin has announced 13 BSE cases for the week, bringing the total this year to 143, only six fewer cases than in 2000. However, the age profile of these animals is positive because none was born after 1996 when additional feeding controls were put in place.