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BERLIN
(AP) _ The head of Germany"s disease control agency
has called for tests of the nation"s sheep for possible
variants of mad cow disease. Reinhard Kurth, head of the
Robert Koch Institute, said cattle and sheep had been exposed
to the same animal feed that may have contained meat and
bone meal, the Welt am Sonntag newspaper reported Sunday.
Mad
cow disease is believed to spread through such feed. "There
is absolutely no basis to assume that sheep are immune to
this disease," Kurth was quoted as saying. He said,
however, that since 1963 Germany has only seen nine reported
cases of sheep scrapie, an illness that is similar to mad
cow disease. Experts believe the cattle disease, which appeared
in the 1970s, may be a mutation of the sheep disease.
Mad
cow disease has been linked to a human illness, Creutzfeldt-Jakob
disease. Researchers believe it is contracted by eating
infected beef. Germany recorded its first case of mad cow
disease last month, and the number of infected cattle is
growing. Other European countries have started pulling German
beef products off shelves and banning imports.
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