Further consideration of age-related parameters on the Risk for Human and Animal Health related to the revision of the BSE Monitoring regime in some

SUMMARY Following a request from the Kingdom of Belgium, the Panel on Biological Hazards was asked to deliver a scientific opinion on Further consideration of age-related parameters on the Risk for Human and Animal Health related to the revision of the BSE Monitoring regime in some Member States. The BIOHAZ Panel was asked to extend the assessment provided in the context of the EFSA’s Scientific Opinion on the “Risk for Human and Animal Health related to the revision of the BSE Monitoring regime in some Member States” to healthy slaughtered cattle up to 84 months of age and to healthy slaughtered cattle born after 31/12/2003. The same analyses described under section 2.1 of the latter opinion were considered valid for this assessment. This assessment should be read together with the above mentioned Opinion in order to fully appreciate the implications of setting different age limits for BSE monitoring in cattle. The BIOHAZ Panel concluded that in case the age of BSE testing increases to 72 or 84 months of age for healthy slaughtered animals respectively less than four and six cases can be expected to be missed annually in the old 15 European Member States (EU15) 2 . Moreover, in case BSE testing would be stopped in healthy slaughtered cattle born after 31/12/2003, less than 6 BSE cases per birth cohort can be expected to be missed in EU15.