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• 04 / 03 / 2009

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In response to the Cuban request, the FAO's Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean issued a communiqué stating that Cuba's joining the project will contribute to strengthening the zoosanitary heritage and human health protection, said FAO's representative Marcio Porto at a meeting in Santiago de Chile in which the Cuban Veterinary Institute (IMV) asked for technical assistance to be part of the group of countries that benefit from the mad cow prevention plan.

Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and the Dominican Republic are the nations included in the project that seeks to enhance and guide veterinary services into obtaining the category of insignificant or controlled risk in a short period of time.

Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as Mad-Cow Disease (MCD), is a fatal, neurodegenerative disease in cattle, which causes a spongy degeneration in the brain and spinal cord.

The disease is one of six animal conditions that can be transmitted from one country to another and scientists believe that it may be transmitted to human beings as well.

IMV experts told ACN that there has not been a reported case of that disease in Cuba since it was first reported.


(PL)