Creutzfeldt Jakob diseaseisan untreatable, universally-fatal disease that can be contracted byeatingpartsof an animalinfectedwithbovinespongiformencephalopathy (BSEormad cow disease).
However feeding animals by-products of other animals can transmit dangerous diseases to humans, including bovinespongiformencephalopathy(mad cowdisease) in cows.
The ministry would also like to oversee a wider distribution of genes from the small percentage of British rams that are resistant to scrapie, a sheep disease similar to bovinespongiformencephalopathy, or mad-cow disease as it is more commonly known.
The decision, confirmed by a ministry press official in Brasilia, follows Egypt's ban of beef on Monday from Parana state, where a cow that died two years ago had developed atypical bovinespongiformencephalopathy (BSE), or madcowdisease.