DA probes entry of ‘mad-cow’ contaminated meat into Visayas

The Department of Agriculture (DA) has launched an investigation into the reported importation and sale in the Visayas of beef products feared to be infected with the dreaded "mad cow" disease virus or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).

DA regional officials launched the probe after the Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD) advised the public against eating beef amid reports that at least 25 tons of infected beef were found in Cebu City last month.

DA Eastern Visayas executive director Leo Cañeda expressed "alarm" at the reported importation of allegedly tainted boneless beef from Ireland to Cebu City last December despite an import ban on beef from countries affected by mad cow disease.

Cañeda said the inquiry will determine whether the contaminated meat was sold in Eastern Visayas, which is a major outlet of meat products imported through Cebu City despite a nationwide ban.

"I have ordered an inquiry on the exact incident. That is alarming," Cañeda told The STAR on Friday, admitting he had been "clueless" prior to a report by the Freeman News Service.

BSE is a fatal illness of cows and sheep caused by a virus that slowly affects the animal’s brain. Several fatal cases of humans affected by the disease, called Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, have also been reported in Europe.

The DA regional office in Tacloban City also placed the veterinary and quarantine offices in the cities of Tacloban, Calbayog and Ormoc on alert against further importation of European beef.

DA regional quarantine officer Dr. Patricio Coroña, however, expressed fear that the banned European meats may have already been consumed by the market.

Coroña warned that the virus is highly resistant and it will take pressurized heat of 120 degrees Celsius to destroy it.

Coroña further lamented that the country still has no instruments to diagnose meats for bovine virus, which slowly destroys the brain over an incubation period that can run up to months.

"We can only determine the cause of death by post-mortem examination," he added.

The moves came after a large beef importer admitted that a shipment of beef from Ireland was sold raw in the market while a portion was processed and sold as longganisa.

This shipment involved 25,755.66 kilos of Irish beef, according to Edson Yu of Monterey Foods Corp., which allegedly imported the meat despite a ban on meat sourced from Europe.

The DA issued a ban on European meat following the spread of BSE among cattle herds in Britain, Ireland, France and other European countries.

Monterey actually imported Irish beef three times since the effectivity of the ban in September, according to Leonardo Abay-Abay, owner of Monterey’s broker Abay-Abay Customs Brokerage Co.

Abay-Abay claimed that the first shipment arrived in Cebu but DA officials claimed that the cargo was not unloaded but was sent back to Ireland.

The second shipment, on the other hand, was the one that carried the beef found in Cebu City while the third shipment, amounting to 25,451.16 kilos of frozen boneless beef, was seized by authorities only last month.