China has banned imports of live cattle and beef from Canada amid fears of mad cow disease in Canadian herds, the Agriculture Ministry said Thursday.
The ban also covers processed beef products, embryos and sperm from Canadian cattle, the ministry said in a circular posted on its Internet Web site.
The circular said all recently imported Canadian cattle and their descendants must be inspected for signs of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy. It didn't say how long the ban would last or under what conditions it might be lifted.
``These measures have been ordered to prevent the spread of mad cow disease to our country, and protect the security of the herding industry and health of the people,'' the circular said.
A statement from the Canadian Embassy said Canada was ``working very closely with all its trading partners ... to safeguard human and animal health and food safety while ensuring the least possible disruption to trade in beef and cattle.''
``Canada has a close and co-operative relationship with China in agriculture and agricultural trade. We are confident that normal international trade will resume on the satisfactory completion of the investigation in Canada,'' the statement said.
China imported about US$12 million in live cattle and frozen beef from China last year.
The United States and other countries have banned imports of Canadian cattle products following the announcement May 20 that one case of mad cow disease had been detected in the cattle heartland of Alberta. It was the first case in North America in a decade, and only the second ever.
Mad cow disease was first diagnosed in Britain in 1986 and is thought to have spread through cow feed made with protein and bone meal from mammals.
The human form is the fatal brain-wasting illness, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, which causes paralysis and death. Scientists believe people get the human form of the disease by eating processed meat products from infected animals. More than 130 people have died of the disease, mostly in Britain.
