U.S. beef confiscated from shops

Eva C. Komandjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government has launched coordinated action to protect the public from mad cow disease amid worrying reports that at least 440 tons of beef imported from the United States has entered the nation.

Director General of Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) Deddy Fardiaz said he had sent his officials to check all supermarkets across Jakarta on Monday to confiscate meat and meat products recently imported from the U.S.

Meanwhile, Director General of Customs and Excise Eddy Abdurrahman promised to boost customs inspection to prevent U.S. beef from entering the country.

Both made the statement in a joint press conference, which was also attended by Minister of Agriculture Bungaran Saragih and top officials from the Ministry of Health and the animal husbandry quarantine agency.

Eddy admitted that he discovered that 11 containers of U.S beef left Tanjung Priok seaport early on Monday but he promised to trace it and to have the meat tested. Each container contains approximately 40 tons of meat.

The office is now holding eight containers of meat which arrived shortly before the press conference.

"We will hold those containers based on the ban imposed by the Minister of Agriculture," said Abdurrahman.

A senior official from the Ministry of Agriculture earlier said that the government had issued a ban on U.S. beef imports on Dec. 24, but there was apparently a lack of coordination among the government offices, hence U.S. meat entered the port on Monday.

The U.S. government officially confirmed its first case of mad cow disease on Dec. 23 based on samples collected on Dec. 9.

Gindo Simanjuntak, an expert of the Ministry of Health called on the public not to panic, saying there were no signs of mad cow disease in the country.

Government data indicates that approximately 6,500 tons of beef are imported from the United States every year, or 4 percent of the total imported beef.

Bungaran said that the public need not worry about a shortage because Indonesia mostly imported beef from Australia and New Zealand. The two countries have been declared disease-free until now.

The mad cow disease, or Bovine Spongiform Encephalophathy (BSE), has been found in many parts of the world. People can get a form of the disease by eating beef of infected cattle. The disease is fatal and so far there is no cure available. Indonesia joined more than a dozen countries in slapping a temporary ban on U.S. beef imports.