Germany to slaughter 400,000 cattle

Germany is to slaughter an estimated 400,000 cattle in an attempt to curb mad cow disease.

Agriculture Minister Renate Kuenast has estimated it would cost the country about £114 million to buy the cattle from farmers, properly slaughter them and dispose of the corpses.

After the animals are killed, they are to be tested for mad cow disease, the common name for bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE.

German ministers had claimed their country was free of the disease, until the first case was discovered in November. Since then, several cases have been discovered every week, bringing the overall number of infected cattle to more than 20.

BSE has been linked with new variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, the human version of the fatal brain-wasting ailment that has killed some 80 Europeans since the mid-1990s, mostly in Britain. Cattle parts ground back into feed are suspected of spreading the disease.