An outbreak of the deadly disease vCJD in Australia is inevitable, according to a report in the Australian Department of Health’s quarterly publication Communicable Diseases Intelligence.
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vCJD, the brain wasting human variant of mad cow disease, is believed to be contracted through consuming beef products contaminated with BSE.
The stringent quarantine and import restrictions in place in Australia, as well as the measures in place to ensure the domestic herd is not at risk from BSE, all mean that the country has so far been kept free from disease outbreaks. The increasing numbers of Australians travelling across the world however does increase the chance that such controls will be breached, notes the report.
