§ Mr. HinchliffeTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how procedures for isolating, monitoring and reporting BSE livestock suspects born after 18 July 1988 differ from those born prior to that date; and if she will make a statement.
§ Mr. SoamesSuspect cases of BSE reported in cattle born after 18 July 1988, when the ban on the use of ruminant protein in ruminant feed was introduced, is with all suspect BSE cases, are compulsorily slaughtered only when a confident clinical diagnosis of the presence of the disease can be made. Slaughter may be carried out sooner if necessary to prevent suffering: this affects compensation arrangements but not the way in which the case is handled and laboratory diagnosis carried out.
Particular care is taken in the clinical assessment of BSE suspects born after the feed ban because it was found, at an early stage, that more than 90 per cent. of such cases were negative on laboratory examination, compared with a negative rate of 15 per cent. for all cattle. In February 1992, Ministry field staff were therefore instructed that suspects born after the ban should not normally be slaughtered at the first visit, but that a further visit should be made, at least seven days later, to reassess the progress of the case. An earlier revisit was to be made if the owner reported that the animal had deteriorated, and immediate action was to be taken to protect the welfare of the suspect animal. This observation period allowed many of the suspects to return to normal, or an alternative diagnosis to be made and treatment given by the owner's veterinary surgeon. This change has resulted in an improvement in the negative rate in this group of animals from 90 per cent. in 1991 to 28 per cent. in 1993.
34WAnimals which are suspected to have BSE do not have to be isolated except when calving.
§ Mr. HinchliffeTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what information is available from the outcome of tests on mink to establish the potential for transferring BSE to this species.
§ Mr. SoamesAlthough mink have been shown to be susceptible to BSE in experimental studies using brain material from confirmed BSE cases, this does not relate to risk of transmission of the disease in the natural situation.
§ Mr. HinchliffeTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food why specified offals excluded from the food chain in November 1989 did not include bone marrow, liver and kidney.
§ Mr. SoamesThe specified bovine offals ban was introduced to remove from the food chain those tissues which, by analogy with natural scrapie in Suffolk sheep were most likely to contain the infective agent of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in significant quantities.
Bone marrow, liver and kidney were excluded as they show minimal or no detectable scrapie infectivity. Subsequent studies in mice with tissue from BSE-infected cattle have shown that only the brain and cervical spinal cord have any detectable infectivity. The BSE agent has not been detected in bone marrow, liver and kidney from cattle which were clinically affected with BSE.
The specified bovine offals ban has been endorsed by indpendent experts in this country, and by the scientific veterinary committee of the European Commission, the World Health Organisation and the Office International des Epizooties.
§ Mr. HinchliffeTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) how many confirmed cases of BSE were reported between 1 January 1992 and 30 September 1992 from each county in England;
(2) how many confirmed cases of BSE were reported between 1 January 1992 and 30 September 1992 from each county in Scotland;
(3) how many confirmed cases of BSE were reported between 1 January 1992 and 30 September 1992 from each county in Wales.
§ Mr. SoamesThe number of confirmed cases in Great Britain by county by date of notification of suspicion of bovine spongiform encephalopathy to the Ministry for the period requested is as follows:
35W
Number of confirmed cases 1 January 1992 to 30 September 1992 Region and county Number Eastern Bedfordshire 77 Cambridgeshire 74 Essex 116 Hertfordshire 80 Lincolnshire 151 Norfolk 641 Northamptonshire 199 Suffolk 289 Midlands and Western Cheshire 1,240 Derbyshire 687 Hereford and Worcestershire 442 Lancashire 958 Leicestershire 470
Region and county Number Manchester 43 Merseyside 23 Nottinghamshire 156 Shropshire 678 Staffordshire 747 West Midlands 24 Warwickshire 227 Northern Cleveland 29 Cumbria 866 Durham 128 Humberside 99 Northumberland 181 Tyne and Wear 7 Yorkshire North 1,109 Yorkshire South 85 Yorkshire West 142 Scotland Borders 73 Central 27 Dumfries 379 Fife 38 Grampian 206 Highland 39 Lothian 31 Orkney 16 Shetland 1 Strathclyde 311 Tayside 82 South Eastern Berkshire 146 Buckinghamshire 204 Hampshire 566 Isle of Wight 127 Kent 304 London 18 Oxfordshire 355 Surrey 212 Sussex East 293 Sussex West 512 South Western Avon 498 Cornwall 1,832 Devon 2,467 Dorset 1,480 Gloucestershire 519 Somerset 2,076 Wiltshire 1,127 Wales Clwyd 401 Dyfed 1,477 Glamorgan Mid 29 Glamorgan South 84 Glamorgan West 25 Gwent 183 Gwynedd 113 Powys 356
§ Mr. HinchliffeTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many cases of confirmed BSE have been reported from(a) the Isle of Man, (b) Jersey and (c) Guernsey, annually for each year since 1988.
§ Mr. SoamesThe information requested, kindly provided by the island authorities, is as follows:
36W
Isle of Man Jersey1 Guernsey2 1988 6 1 34 1989 6 4 49 1990 22 8 73
Isle of Man Jersey1 Guernsey2 1991 68 15 75 1992 108 23 92 19933 73 19 94 1 For Jersey, the information is shown by the year in which the animals were slaughtered as it is not available by the date when they were reported. 2 For Guernsey, only early cases and cases born after the ruminant feed ban in July 1988 have been confirmed by histopathological examination of brain material. All other confirmed cases are based solely on diagnosis by clinical signs. 3 To 26 October 1993.
§ Mr. HinchliffeTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she will make a statement on the accuracy of current methods to identify tissues infected with BSE outside the brain and spinal cord.
§ Mr. SoamesThe bioassay used to detect infectivity in cattle tissues is the most sensitive method currently available. That the test is effective is shown by the fact that it does detect infectivity in brain tissue and cervical spinal cord from confirmed BSE cases, and that incubation periods were shorter than for the equivalent transmission experiments in cattle.
§ Mr. HinchliffeTo ask the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food when she will publish the results of the monitoring study described in paragraph 8.1 of the Southwood report.
§ Mr. SoamesThe monitoring study described in paragraph 8.1 of the Southwood report has not produced any results yet as it is being conducted as a blind experiment and has a number of years to run. However, field evidence derived from the BSE epidemic as a whole shows that to 4 October 1993 there are 347 confirmed BSE cases in animals which were offspring of previously confirmed cases. This incidence is not statistically different from the incidence in cattle whose dams are unaffected.