A Brazilian beef product recently banned in Canada and the United States due to fears of mad cow disease, will continue to sell locally -- at least in the short-term, the Royal Gazette learned yesterday.

Last Friday, the US followed Canada's decision of earlier in the week to ban the importation of Brazilian corned beef, beef gravy, gelatin and other processed beef products.

But a local wholesaler said yesterday that although the Libby's brand of corned beef being sold in local stores originated in Brazil, it was not considered a public risk.

"Brazil has been a source of corned beef to the Island for a number of years,'' said Butterfield and Vallis general manager Edward Sousa. "It is our belief that there is no more risk today than there has been for decades.'' Butterfield and Vallis also released a Press statement from Libby's stating: "The recall is the Canadian government's response to Brazil's failure to attend to Canada's request for information regarding its beef. No Brazilian cattle have been reported ill and no human illnesses have been reported as a result of consuming Brazilian beef.'' Mr. Sousa said that although corned beef supplies already in stock locally would not be recalled, the ban in the United States would prevent additional corned beef from being brought in while it remained in effect.

"The supplies on the Island at present came in the past two to three months before the ban,'' he said. "All products are trans-shipped through the US though, so we won't be in a position to import any more until the ban is lifted.'' Mr. Sousa also pointed out that the corned beef products were not being recalled in the United States either.

While Canada was recalling all the products off grocery store shelves, the US had only implemented a temporary suspension of imports.

"I suspect that once the Brazilian government complies with the request for information regarding its beef, the ban will be lifted,'' said Mr. Sousa.

Brazil is home to the world's largest home of cattle and the Canadian government reportedly put its ban in place because Brazil imported live animals from Europe until 1999.

Mad cow disease -- or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) -- originally appeared in cattle in the UK in 1986 and between that time and December of last year there were some 180,000 cases confirmed in the UK. Cases began to appear in other parts of Europe in 1989 and bans on UK beef products started to be implemented in 1996.

The danger to humans is in the form of new variant Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease (nvCJD). To date over 90 cases of nvCJD have been reported, primarily in the UK.

Bermuda sells banned beef The degenerative disease is believed to occur as a result of eating BSE-infected beef. Its symptoms begin with mood swings and dizziness and deteriorate to a near-comatose state before death.

Last week, the Bermuda Red Cross Association decided to ban blood donations from anyone who had spent a cumulative six months in Europe between 1980 and 1996 in an effort to minimise risk of mad cow disease transmission by transfusion on the island.

Despite the fact there are no known cases of nvCJD transmission by blood in humans, Bermuda elected to fall in line with a recent US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) decision on protecting the blood supply.

Local butchers said yesterday that there was no danger of mad cow disease from fresh and frozen beef being sold on the Island as beef from the UK stopped coming into Bermuda years ago.

"Miles doesn't import any beef from Europe and hasn't for the five or six years I've been here. It's all from the United States,'' said Mark Keegan of Miles' Market yesterday.

"We don't have any Brazilian beef products,'' he added. "Even our by-products are from the US, we have no Argentinian or Brazilian beef products at all.'' "Even English beef sausages are banned,'' said Kevin Rock, the meat manager at Arnold's Family Foods. "All our fresh beef cuts are brought in from the US and our frozen beef comes from New Zealand.''