Since the earliest case of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) epidemic was first confirmed in the United Kingdom in 1987, strict legislation was set up year after year.
This has been done taking into account new scientific and epidemiologic evidences showing that meat and bone meal are the most probable vector of the disease, in order to eradicate BSE in Europe.
Nowadays, the European Commission has come to the stage that amendments of certain measures could be envisaged, without endangering the health or the policy of eradicating BSE, provided that the positive trend continues and scientific conditions are in place.
The scientific conditions to complete regarding the amendments of the total feed ban are the development and validation of analytical methods and tools for the detection of the presence of species-specific animal proteins in animal feed.
Actually, the existing methods do not allow species-specific identification and lead to the impossibility to lift the total ban and to implement the anti-cannibalism ban.
The SAFEED-PAP project aims to complete the scientific conditions that should allow the repealing of the extended feed ban.
SAFEED-PAP project will use the inherent difference and complementarities of the various methods in terms of their targets to develop and validate methods that will allow reaching the scientific conditions for the amendment of the total feed ban.
The SAFEED-PAP project has three main objectives that should lead to solve the problematic of the species specific detection of MBM in compound feeds:
- Development of suitable validated methods for the species specific detection and quantification of animal protein in compound feed in order to allow the amendment of the extended total ban;
- Development of tools and analytical kits for the correct implementation of the methods in the labs;
- To set up the appropriate environment for the optimum application of the methods.
The European Project, SAFEED-PAP (FOOD-CT-2006-036221), on the “Detection of presence of species-specific processed animal proteins in animal feed”, is funded under the 6th EC FP, DG RTD with a full duration of 36 months.
Keywords:
Feed safety, animal proteins, species-specific detection
Project coordinator: Dr Vincent Baeten