MAF ASSISTS BRITAIN IN FIGHT AGAINST BSE
New Zealand's international recognition as being free of bovine spongiform encaphalitis
(BSE) - sometimes referred to as mad cow disease - has enabled MAF to help British
scientists develop diagnostic tests for the disease.
The Ministry recently sent 100 sample sets of brainstem and spinal cord material, collected at slaughterhouses from mature cattle, to the UK MAFF for use as negative controls in the development of BSE diagnostic tests.
The Ministry's national manager of surveillance, Roger Poland, says in developing such a test, scientists have to know that any negative samples they are using are definitely negative, in order that the tests are accurately calibrated. New Zealand's robustly substantiated status as being BSE-free, means we are a reliable source of negative control material.
Earlier in the year MAF contributed over a thousand such samples to Europe for similar developmental work.
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