An Edmonton-area cow has died of mad-cow disease, officials with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed Thursday.

"The entire carcass has been incinerated and did not enter the human or animal feed systems," the agency's release says.

It's Canada's seventh case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

The agency revealed Monday that a four-year-old dairy cow suspected of having BSE had died on a farm. The cow wasn't producing milk, so there is no risk to people.

Samples of the dead cow were sent to the National Centre for Foreign Animal Disease in Winnipeg for testing.

Harry Haney, president of the Independent Breeders Service near Airdrie, said finding another Canadian cow with BSE wasn't unexpected.

"Other countries that have had cases of BSE have also seen this kind of a situation, where in fact the cow, born after the feed ban was put in place, has come up with the disease," he said Thursday.

"Again, we'd rather it didn't happen, but in terms of the science and the risks to human health, it's not an issue."

Ban imposed

The Edmonton-area dairy cow was born after 1997, when Canada imposed a ban on the type of feed associated with BSE.

George Luterbach,  the agency's senior veterinarian, said Monday the cow could have been infected by cattle feed that had accidentally been mixed with another animal's feed in a bin.

The agency has quarantined the farm and is testing other cows born within a year of the dairy cow for BSE.

Earlier this week, Alberta ranchers said they weren't expecting fallout from the case.

A discovery of BSE in an Alberta cow in 2003 threw the country's cattle industry into chaos. Many countries closed their borders to imports of Canadian cows or beef in the wake of the discovery.

However, in December 2004, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it recognized Canada as a "minimal-risk region."

New classification

The new classification means the U.S. will not close its borders again to Canadian beef unless there are two or more cases of BSE per one million cattle older than 24 months in each of four consecutive years.

Simply put, Canada can have up to 11 cases of BSE and still be considered a safe country for cattle exports.

Canada has also tightened up the rules to prevent cases of BSE.

Since 1997, protein-based tissues from the skulls, brains, nerves, eyes, spinal cords and bones of older cattle have been banned from cattle and ruminant feed manufactured or sold in Canada because of their role in passing on the disease.

Last month, the agency announced it was cracking down even further on potential ways of spreading BSE. A year from now, cattle tissues that could transmit mad-cow disease will no longer be allowed in pet foods, chicken feed and fertilizer under new federal rules.

Since 2003, the agency has tested 115,000 cattle for BSE.

BSE has been linked to a deadly type of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease among humans who have eaten certain types of tissues from infected cows.