Significant decline in number of BSE cases

This year has seen a marked decline in BSE numbers — 150 to date compared with 268 in the same period last year.

Agriculture and Food Minister Joe Walsh said yesterday the confidence he had expressed some time ago that the effectivenes of the measures put in place to tackle the disease would see a fall in the number of cases had been borne out.

The age profile of confirmed cases also strongly support the belief that this trend of decline will continue, he told a press briefing in Dublin.