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EFSA publishes Geographical BSE-Risk (GBR) assessments for Australia, Canada, Mexico, Norway, South Africa, Sweden and the United States of America

In 2003 EFSA was requested by the European Commission (EC) to re-assess the Geographical Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) risk (GBR) for 13 countries: Australia, Botswana, Canada, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Namibia, Norway, Mexico, Panama, Swaziland, Sweden and the United States. Although the European Commission did not specifically seek advice from EFSA relating to the appearance of BSE in South Africa, the working group decided to carry out a risk assessment for this country under a self-tasking mandate in order to allow for a meaningful evaluation of the three other countries in the Southern African Region for which a GBR assessment was requested (i.e. Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland). EFSA’s Scientific Expert Working Group on the Assessment of the GBR has completed to date those assessments relating to Australia, Canada, Mexico, Norway, South Africa, Sweden and the United States of America. The GBR assessments for the remaining countries will be finalized by the end of 2004.

In conducting the GBR assessments, EFSA’s GBR working group followed the methodology developed by the former Scientific Steering Committee of DG Health and Consumer Safety (DG SANCO) of the European Commission which is described in its final opinion on GBR assessment . The risk assessments published today are based on up-to-date data provided by the countries concerned as well as other sources of data (i.e. Eurostat and country export data) covering the period of 1980 to 2003.

GBR level Presence of one or more cattle clinically or pre-clinically infected with the BSE agent in a geographical region/country GBR of the country/Region Current status (status before)
I Highly unlikely   Australia (I)  
II Unlikely but not excluded   Norway (I), Sweden (II)  
III Likely but not confirmed or confirmed at a lower level Canada (II), Mexico (N/A), South Africa (N/A), USA (II)
IV Confirmed at a higher level  

N/A= not applicable, i.e. not assessed before

Preliminary-opinion on a method to assess the geographical BSE-Risk of Countries or Regions (adopted on 10 December 1998).

Final opinion on the Geographical Risk of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (GBR) (Adopted on 6 July 2000).  (PDF)

Updated opinion on the Geographical Risk of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (GBR) (adopted on 11 January 2002). (PDF)

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