MADRID: The ministry imposed the ban after the World Organisation for Animal Health confirmed a recent case of mad cow disease in Spain.
The atypical type H form of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) commonly known as mad cow disease- was detected in a cow in El Sahugo, Salamanca, close to the Portuguese border.
Another case of mad cow disease was reported in Castilla y Leon in March earlier this year.
The mad cow disease is a fatal neurodegenerative disease in cattle that may be passed to humans who have eaten infected flesh.
People cannot get mad cow disease. But in rare cases they may get a human form of mad cow disease called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), which is fatal.
This can happen if you eat nerve tissue (the brain and spinal cord) of cattle that were infected with mad cow disease.