Facts about Mad Cow Disease discuss the BSE or bovine spongiform encephalopathy. The spinal cord and brain will face spongiform degeneration if the cattle are affected by mad cow disease. A prion is a misfolded protein, which causes BSE. The peak age onset of the cattle affected by BSE is around 4 to 5 years. The incubation period is also longer. It takes 2.5 to 5 years. In 1986 until 1998, there was an epidemic of mad cow disease in United Kingdom. During the eradication program, the slaughtered cattle reached 4.4 million. The infected cattle reached 180,000 cattle. Let me show you other interesting facts about mad cow disease below:
Facts about Mad Cow Disease 1: human contamination
Human might be contaminated by mad cow disease if they eat the contaminated food.
Facts about Mad Cow Disease 2: the infectious agent
The nervous tissue is the most concentrated infectious agent. However, the blood and all tissues of the body may contain mad cow disease.
Mad Cow
Facts about Mad Cow Disease 3: the transmission
The mad cow disease is used to call the disease transmitted to cattle. When it is transmitted to human, it will be called nvCJD or vCJD. It stands for Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease.
Facts about Mad Cow Disease 4: the dead people
In United Kingdom, 77 people died because of the disease by June 2014. Another report stated that 52 people died in other parts of the world especially in Western Europe due to the consumption of beef from United Kingdom.
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Facts about Mad Cow Disease 5: the human food chain
The human food chain was affected by 460,000 to 482,000 animals with mad cow disease prior the introduction of high-risk offal control in 1989.
Facts about mad cow disease
Facts about Mad Cow Disease 6: the origin
It was hard to find out the origin of mad cow disease. It spread in United Kingdom due to a number of reasons such as the decreased temperature of the rendering process and the consumption of infected protein supplements by the young calves.
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Facts about Mad Cow Disease 7: the long incubation period
The long incubation period of mad cow disease, lead into the unidentified signs and symptoms.
Facts about Mad Cow Disease 8: the symptoms
The common symptoms of mad cow disease are tremors, behavioral changes, and abnormal gait of the infected cattle.
mad cow disease facts
Facts about Mad Cow Disease 9: the changes in behavior
The changes in behaviors can be seen on the nervousness, temperament changes, anxiety and aggression.
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Facts about Mad Cow Disease 10: other symptoms
Other symptoms, which might occur in mad cow disease, include teeth grinding, lameness, and reduced production of milk, weight loss, persistent licking, and rubbing.
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