European food safety experts on Monday praised Canadian officials for the way they investigated a case of mad cow disease in Alberta.

"They did a very, very good job," Dr. Ulrich Kihm, a Swiss food safety expert, told reporters in Ottawa.

"I have never seen such a comprehensive investigation done in such a short time," he said.




Kihm was part of a four-person team of experts in Canada to observe the Canadian investigation and make recommendations for preventing further damage from the disease.

The experts came from the United States, Europe and New Zealand.

A single cow tested positive nearly three weeks ago for the brain-wasting disease bovine spongiform encephalopathy.

Since then, more than 2,000 cattle have been killed, and 1,500 brain samples have been sent to a laboratory for testing. Canadian Food Inspection Agency officials said on Monday that no other cases of mad cow disease have been found.

Other cattle that might be related to the infected cow have been taken from 25 non-quarantined farms.

Over the weekend, several farms were taken off the quarantine list, leaving nine farms isolated. But the investigation is pretty much over, CFIA officials said.

"The active investigation component has achieved everything it could achieve," said the CFIA's Dr. Brian Evans.

Evans said the CFIA's focus would be turning toward policy changes to strengthen the screening and surveillance systems to prevent more outbreaks of mad cow disease.

Kihm said the Europeans can help in that regard. He said they have a lot of experience to draw on, having learned from their own mistakes in handling mad cow disease as it spread across the continent.

Step one, he said, is to stop feeding animals to other animals.

"And you have to enforce it, and you have to look at the implementation at all levels," he said.

Evans said technical consultations with the United States would be held "in the near future."

U.S. officials say they want to look at the scientific evidence turned up by the investigation before making a decision on lifting a ban on imports of Canadian beef.