Canada tests cow for mad cow disease

April 14, 2006

Initial tests done on a six-year-old dairy cow in Fraser Valley, a farming community near Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada, are inconclusive for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or "mad cow disease," said Canada's Food Inspection Agency.

Further tests are being conducted at Winnipeg's National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease and results are expected on Sunday. Officials also say the cow did not enter the human food chain.

"Canada has a suite of internationally recognized safeguards that work together to provide high levels of human and animal health protection," officials for the agency said in a statement.

If the results are positive, this will be Canada's fifth case of the disease since 2003.