An Irish company may have solved one of the most difficult and damaging problems confronting the food industry struggling to cope with the BSE crisis: how to detect the disease in meat speedily.
Enfer Scientific, a food and veterinary research company based in Dublin and Tipperary, says it has developed a test which, within 2 1/2 hours of taking sample tissue from a dead animal, can tell if BSE antibodies are present. The test allows meat-processors to screen all beef and remove any showing signs of BSE infection.
The Enfer test could be important in demonstrating the safety of Irish beef, in addition to its global potential.
If the test is developed further, dealers in live cattle could check animals for BSE before they were sold, thereby limiting the spread of infection.
The test, validated by the Department of Agriculture, costs £22.50 per sample and is considered inexpensive: it would at worst translate into a few extra pence on a prime cut of beef.
Enfer's technical director, Mr Michael O'Connor, said that since details of the test were announced in February, the time had been reduced. Other BSE tests have taken up to two weeks to complete. It had been fully validated with a production system in place capable of testing large numbers of samples.
Currently, it can test 14,000 cattle a week through the back-up of automation and robotics. But without difficulty, it could manage 30,000 a week, the average number of cattle killed in Irish meat plants at busy times of the year.
Significantly, the test can detect BSE in bone and bone marrow. This adds to its significance given recent British research which links the disease with such tissue outside the brain and spinal cord. This is what led to a British ban on beef on the bone and Department of Health advice that Irish beef should no longer be sold with bone.
The Enfer system identifies reactions with cattle antibodies, through a process known as enhanced chemi-luminescence. It was initially developed for hospital analyses, but the company adapted it for the food and veterinary sectors by incorporating innovative technologies.
A Department spokesman said its veterinary research laboratory had validated the test and was using it as a back-up to its own test protocol. It was aware that it could be used on bone samples and felt it was "flexible, sensitive and has the ability to record results in double quick time".
The Russian veterinary delegation which was recently in Ireland visited Enfer and was "suitably impressed". Delegates were aware of the depopulation strategy and BSE research capability with the Department.
Mr O'Connor said Enfer, which employs 29 people, had not gone to the market seeking customers because it wanted to build up its production capability. "The worst thing is not to be able to supply the market. . . We would not be so bullish if we were not so confident about the data."
