"Mad cow disease": active surveillance in BiH.

The aim of this study was to assess the BSE related situation in BiH and initiate the activities toward the completion of diagnostic procedures and prevention of mad cow disease occurrence and thus the prevention of human neurological diseases.In this work the results of active surveillance over “mad cow disease“ in BiH, are presented. All brain tissue samples were taken from the cows older than 24 months and slaughtered for the human consumption purposes in abattoirs. We tested 13298 samples originating from six cantons in FBiH, and RS between 2006- 2008, with each sample proven negative. The test results from 2008 to date are not presented in this work because in the meantime the ELISA(BIO-RAD) kit was replaced with the IDEXXELISA kit. Key words: cattle, bovine spongiform encephalopathy, active surveillance