The five new cases announced yesterday by the Department of Agriculture brought to 43 the number of cases of BSE confirmed during January.
Only one of this week's cases was found on a farm, the others were detected at knackeries where injured or sick animals had been taken for destruction.
The youngest animal detected last week was a six-year-old in a dairy herd in Cork. To date, no animals born after 1996 have been found with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy(BSE) and there has been a declining number of younger animals detected in the past two years.
In July 2000 testing of all casualty and fallen cattle was initiated and since January 2001 all cattle over 30 months are tested. Almost 630,000 tests were carried out in 2001 and 77,000 tests have been carried out this year to date.
Meanwhile, details of the 2002 Royal Dublin Society Spring Livestock Show were announced yesterday. The show will take place on May 11th at Goffs, Kill, Co Kildare, and will be the first national livestock show since the start of the foot-and-mouth crisis last March.
The event, according to Pat Mc Dermott of the RDS, is not an attempt to replace the old Spring Show.
