< anchor>
our government says there has been an outbreak of mad cow disease in a slaughterhouse
in the United States. The government has decided to expand the inspection rate for imports of U.S. beef from today (22nd).

Reporter Ahn Sang-woo reports.

< Reporter>
The Ministry of
Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said yesterday that an atypical bovine spongiform encephalopathy called "mad cow disease" occurred at a slaughterhouse in South Carolina, United States.

As a result, we have decided to tighten quarantine procedures for U.S. beef starting today.

First, as an interim measure, we will increase the spot inspection rate for U.S. beef from the current 3% to 10%.

In addition, we requested epidemiological information from the U.S. government on this mad cow disease outbreak and decided to consider whether further action is necessary based on the results of the epidemiological investigation and relevant regulations.

Unlike orthopedic mad cow disease, which is caused by ingestion of contaminated feed, the atypical mad cow disease identified this time occurs very rarely and naturally, mainly in elderly cattle over 8 years of age, and there are no cases of human infection.

Earlier, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it had tested cattle classified as unfit for slaughter under the Routine Mad Cow Disease Screening Program and found an outbreak of mad cow disease in one beef cattle raised in Tennessee, which was immediately discarded and not supplied to the food chain.

South Carolina and Tennessee reportedly do not have slaughterhouses or processing plants approved for export to South Korea.

(Video editing: Choi Hye-ran)