It is the third clean bill of health for local cattle and the result comes hot on the heels of a ban that China slapped on imports of cattle and cattle products from Canada, where a cow in Alberta tested positive for the brain-wasting ailment last Tuesday, said Zhao Weining, a division director of the ministry.

Zhao told China Daily Thursday: "In line with the standards of the Office International des Epizooties, we have examined more than 4,000 brain tissues of deceased cattle from farms and slaughterhouses throughout China over the past three years, and all the test results were negative.''

The findings of the survey, which have been conducted each year since 2000, indicated that China's cattle and beef industry was safe and the chance of an outbreak of mad cow disease --bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) -- occurring in China was extremely slim, he said.

Before the case surfaced in Canada, China had imported US$7.7 million worth of live cattle and US$6.3 million worth frozen beef from Canada between January 2002 and March this year, Michael Martin, the public information counselor at the Canadian Embassy, said Thursday.

Zhao said China will enhance its monitoring of Canadian cattle already in the country, their descendants and embryos.

Samples of any Canadian cattle suspected of showing neurotic disease symptoms will be sent to the National BSE Laboratory in Shandong Province in the nation's east for examination, he said.

The survey in 2002 covered all of Chinese mainland's 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, which were each asked to send 50 to 100 brain samples to the Shandong laboratory or Chinese University of Agriculture in Beijing.

The check-up focused on imported cattle and their offspring, but also examined domestic breeds, according to Wang Zhiliang, the director of the Shandong BSE centre.

China had 128 million head of cattle in early 2002, statistics from the ministry revealed.

(China Daily May 30, 2003)