Mad cow disease can come to Russia

There is threat of the spread of mad cow disease in Russia, although not a single case of this disease has been registered among people or animals in this country so far, Russia's chief state sanitary physician Gennady Onishchenko told a press conference at RIA Novosti. In some West-European countries the situation about the mad cow disease is developing fast, which, considering the great volume of meat imports, "creates a certain threat to our country", he noted. In this connection, he first of all expressed concern over "the cases of criminal imports where meat is imported from infected areas under the forged documents of those countries where the situation is better in this respect", RIA Novosti reports. Due to the epidemic of mad cow disease, the medics throughout the world are facing the problem of diagnosing it. "This epidemic also raised the problem of the human organs transplantation and the use of growth hormones, during which one may contract the mad cow disease, concluded Gennady Onishchenko.