Results released on Sunday, January 2, 2005 confirmed that a 10-year old dairy cow in Alberta, Canada has tested positive for BSE, according to veterinary officials with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

"The infected animal was detected through the recently enhanced national surveillance programme. Additional cases may be found as testing of high-risk cattle continues," said the agency. "The CFIA is continuing its investigation and has determined the infected animal's farm of origin. Efforts are now underway to identify any other animals of similar risk."

The animal did not enter the human food or animal feed supply. Officials said there was no risk to the public.

Despite the new case of BSE, the USA is so far standing by the decision to lift a ban on Canadian beef, announced several days ago. A spokesperson for USDA said that as long as Canada continues to implement measures to prevent the disease from entering the human and animal food chains, the confirmation of another BSE case should not be a problem to the lifting of the ban scheduled for March. The USDA said it had considered the possibility of Canada discovering further infected cattle when it conducted a risk assessment on Canadian live cattle exports and deemed that the ban should be lifted.