Animal feed suspected in South African CJD case

By ALEX DUVAL SMITH and PAUL LASHMAR

JOHANNESBURG - Specialists on mad cow disease face the new and worrying prospect that the human form of the brain-wasting illness may have spread far wider than previously thought, after new reports that a 35-year-old South African woman - who had never travelled abroad - died from it six months ago.

It is believed to be the first non-European case of new variant Creutzfeldt Jacob disease (vCJD) - the form of the disease which is specifically linked to bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

Eight years after Britain banned the sale of potentially BSE-infected feed to its farmers, the product was still being exported to more than 20 countries around the world. South Africa imported tens of thousands of tonnes of British animal feed.

There have been 85 cases of vCJD in Britain to date, three in France, one in Ireland and most recently a case in Canada of an expatriate Scot who spent a large part of his life in London. The South African victim, Ronel Eckard, appears to have picked up the disease from eating hamburgers and had never travelled overseas. Suspicion must now centre on whether the meat was infected with BSE as a result of contaminated British feed exports.

Eckard died only four months after progressively losing all feeling in her arms and legs, her electrician husband, Ken, said at the weekend. Eckard said he had approached the media because health authorities had failed to follow up on his wife's death.

South Africa and Zimbabwe have Africa's biggest beef industries and have been proud of their "BSE-free" record. Exports have soared since the end of trade sanctions in 1994.

Britain imposed a ban on using meat and bone meal (MBM) made from slaughtered cows in cattle feed in July 1988. Just three months earlier Government animal health experts had realised that feed made from bovine MBM was responsible for the rapid spread of the BSE in Britain. But for eight more years contaminated feed was exported worldwide with little or no warning.

Before the BSE crisis about 350,000 tonnes a year of MBM feed was sold on the British market and relatively little was exported. After the ban there was a surge in exports of the feed to Europe. Then as European Union countries imposed bans on British feed, exporters opened up new markets.

Feed went to the Czech Republic, Nigeria, Thailand, South Africa, Kenya, Turkey, Liberia, Lebanon, Indonesia, Puerto Rico, Hungary, Malaysia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea, the United States, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Curacao and Sri Lanka.

In March 1996, when the Government was certain that BSE caused the human variant CJD, the sale of all British MBM feed was banned by an EU directive.

South Africa's national veterinary services director, Gideon Bruckner, said that no cases of BSE had been found in South Africa. "Since 1998 import controls have been in place on all bone meal from Europe."

- HERALD CORRESPONDENTS