By Nho Joon-hun
Staff Reporter

SEOUL According to Agriculture and Forestry Minister Han Kap-soo, there has not been a single case of mad cow disease in Korea. In fact, there is no proof whatsoever that there has ever been a reported case of the weeks sickness.

Still, the consumption of beef has fallen drastically within the past weeks, with even some distributors of Korean beef complaining of a 40-percent reduction in sales.

According to dairy product experts, the possibility of a domestic consumer getting infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), the technical term for mad cow disease, is very, very, very low.

"Our study shows that there has not been a single case of the variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) and we doubt that there will ever be," said one specialist.

Nevertheless, the ministry has set up a special pan-government task force for dealing with all aspects of mad cow disease which is currently "sweeping" through Europe.

Ministry officials confirmed Feb. 6 that there has not been a single case of vCJD and that extensive inspections of domestic cattle have proven so over the past five years.

"There is concern that BSE could have spread by giving domestic cattle tainted animal feed, but studies have confirmed that none of them were contaminated with BSE," the expert explained.

While mad cow disease is still a mysterious disease, it is fatal and there is no known cure. It broke out in Britain, where some 80 persons have been infected.

As far as is known, BSE contaminates cows with a protein derivative called prion which takes a couple of years to crawl into the brain, causing paralysis and eventual death.

The symptoms are similar for humans and the prion is known to take some five to 10 years to cause severe damage to the brain, leading to death.

"In Korea, there have been some deaths caused by CJD, not vCJD, but nothing is confirmed yet and tests have shown that there has not been a single case of vCJD, the disease that we should be concerned about," Han said.

Still, the mad cow disease scare has caused consumers to shy away from beef of all types, domestic or foreign, and some supermarkets have complained of a 60-percent decline in the sales of chilled imported beef.

"All the explanations that there is nothing wrong with products which are sold here are doing little good. Sales are down sharply and we expect the trend to continue for the time being," one salesperson said.