RISK OF BSE FROM THE IMPORT OF CATTLE FROM THE UNITED-KINGDOM INTO COUNTRIES OF THE EUROPEAN-UNION

This study assesses quantitatively the risk that other countries, in p articular those within the European Union, have incurred, by importing cattle from the United Kingdom during the period before or shortly af ter the ban on the import of live breeding stock was introduced in 198 9, It does this by assessing the probability that animals imported fro m the UK in a certain year would have become a detected BSE ease, had they not been exported. Using the annual incidence rates available for separate birth cohorts and a given culling rate, a cumulative inciden ce for each birth cohort was calculated, These figures were then combi ned with the numbers of live breeding cattle imported from the UK into the other countries of the Ev, to give an import-related risk index f or each country, assuming that their culling rates were similar to tha t in Great Britain. The countries could thus be categorised in terms o f the number of cases of BSE they might have expected.