§ Mr. MorleyTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many cases of spongiform encephalopathy have been established in(a) kudu, (b) nyala, (c) eland, (d) gemsbok, (e) Arabian oryx, (f) puma and (g) cheetah in each of the last four years, with the age of each animal involved and the suspected cause of transmission.
§ Mrs. BrowningThe following numbers of cases have been confirmed in Great Britain in the species listed in each of the last four years.
1990 1991 1992 1993 Kudu (19) 1 (37,36*) 2 — — Nyala — — — — Eland — (27,28) 2 (24) 1 — Gemsbok — — — — Arabian Oryx — — — — Puma — (62) 1 — — Cheetah — — (96) 1 (91) 1 Classification is by year of death: ages in months at the time of death are shown in brackets. Animals marked with an asterisk showed no clinical signs when they were euthanased. Disease may have spread between kudu by contact or possibly environmental contamination after being introduced in feed and transmission between eland is also possible. The puma and cheetahs were fed parts of bovine carcases, including central nervous tissue, which were deemed unfit for human consumption.