THE Department of Agriculture (DA) has lifted the ban on the importation of meat and bone meal (MBM) feeds from Australia after the Office International des Epizooties (OIE) certified that such products are now free from bovine spongiform encelopathy (BSE), or mad-cow disease.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap issued a directive lifting the ban after the OIE adopted a resolution recognizing Australia as one of its member-countries free of mad cow, which is a transmissible and fatal brain ailment afflicting cattle.

In lifting the ban, Yap noted that MBM and other inedible products are regulated and verified by the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service  and are processed under the Australian Standard for Hygienic Rendering of Animal Products.

“The Australian Standard used in Australian MBM, meat meal, bone meal, blood meal, feather meal, poultry meal, poultry byproduct meal, tallow, poultry oil and fish-meal production is designed to eliminate pathogens relevant to Australia and prevent recontamination of processed rendered products,” said Yap.

Australia currently exports MBM to Indonesia, Canada, the United States, European Union, Malaysia, South Africa, China, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam.

Yap noted that the measures undertaken by Australian food and health authorities in ensuring the safety of its MBM exports are satisfactory.

The DA noted that during a joint meeting of the OIE, Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization in 2001, it was recommended that ruminant (cattle) meat and MBN should not be  fed in any case to ruminant  animals.

Authorities have raised the possibility that “mad cow” could be the cause of a new variant of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a human brain-wasting illness.

The feeding of ruminant protein to ruminants, which is a possible way of transmitting BSE, is prohibited in Australia.

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THE Department of Agriculture (DA) has lifted the ban on the importation of meat and bone meal (MBM) feeds from Australia after the Office International des Epizooties (OIE) certified that such products are now free from bovine spongiform encelopathy (BSE), or mad-cow disease.