Overview over German BSE cases until 4 July 2009 Evaluation | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Federal Land | BSE cases | Total | |||||||||
2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | ||
Baden-Württemberg | 0 | 12 | 11 | 9 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 47 |
Bayern | 5 | 59 | 27 | 21 | 21 | 7 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 143 |
Berlin | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Brandenburg | 0 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16 |
Bremen | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Hamburg | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Hessen | 0 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 11 |
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | 0 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 14 |
Niedersachsen | 1 | 17 | 27 | 7 | 14 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 76 |
Nordrhein-Westfalen | 0 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 8 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 22 |
Rheinland-Pfalz | 0 | 4 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 14 |
Saarland | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Sachsen | 0 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 15 |
Sachsen-Anhalt | 0 | 4 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 |
Schleswig-Holstein | 1 | 12 | 14 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 32 |
Thüringen (Statistics) | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 |
Total | 7 | 25 | 105 | 54 | 65 | 32 | 16 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 412 |
You will get to my traditional detailed chronicles by clicking the links indicated by the years in the head of the table. By clicking the names of the federal laender you will get to their respective web sites containing their press releases.
Descriptions of various breeds of cattle like Fleckvieh (German Simmental), Braunvieh (German Braunvieh) and Schwarzbunte (Black Pied) may be found with the Agrar Information Service (AID).
1) Explanations of column "Percentage of tested slaughter cattle"
To be able to compare the BSE case numbers of the different Federal Laender one has to view them in relation to the respective size of the population at risk, i.e. especially the 3-7-year-old cows. The male, very young and very old bovines do not play a role as they are rarely detected as incubating BSE. Current numbers of these medium aged cows have not been made available to me, however, the numbers of BSE tested slaughter cattle published on a Bavarian Internet site are closely related to the actually needed numbers. While the absolute test numbers are permanently changing the respective shares of the Federal Laender of the total test numbers remain nearly constant. Therefore for the purpose of this table I simply divided the number of tests carried out in each Federal Land during the first 42 calendar weeks by the sum of all tests carried out in this period.
Basing the calculations on the number of BSE tests in slaughter cattle has the following advantages:
Basing the calculations on the numbers of official BSE tests in slaughter cattle on the other hand also raises a few problems:
2) Explanation of column "milking cows as of 3.11.2000"
The numbers of milking cows in the various Federal Laender I took from a table provided by the Federal Office for Statistics.. The situation in Germany need not necessarily be comparable, however, in England the BSE prevalence in milking cows was much higher than in suckler cows. Male bovines as well as females slaughtered as calves or heifers practically do not play a role in BSE statistics. Therefore the number of milking cows is a rather solid measure on which to base the figures of BSE cases in a Federal Land. However, problems are
Only in relation to the size of the population at risk the BSE cases of the different Federal Laender will actually become comparable, and the BSE risk of individual bovines in Niedersachsen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt and Schleswig-Holstein appears to be almost as high as in Bayern. Additionally it is shown that while the numbers of BSE cases in Bayern and especially Baden-Württemberg seem to decline they seem to be on the rise in Schleswig-Holstein and especially Niedersachsen. Nordrhein-Westfalen appears remarkably unaffected by BSE.
(Translation by Ingrid Schütt-Abraham)
Copyright Roland Heynkes
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