US Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns has announced that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) will soon begin transitioning to an ongoing Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) surveillance programme that corresponds to “the extremely low prevalence of the disease in the USA”.

The ongoing programme will sample approximately 40,000 animals each year. USDA will continue to collect samples from a variety of sites and from the cattle populations where the disease is most likely to be detected, similar to the enhanced surveillance programme procedures.

"It's time that our surveillance efforts reflect what we now know is a very, very low level of BSE in the United States," said Johanns. "This ongoing surveillance programme will maintain our ability to detect BSE, provide assurance that our interlocking safeguards are successfully preventing BSE, while continuing to exceed science-based international guidelines."