Horrific toll of outbreak

BSE was discovered in 1984 when a cow in Sussex lost co-ordination, had tremors and died within six weeks.

Beef exports were banned and millions of cattle were slaughtered after the outbreak.

In 1992 and 1993, 72,370 cows in the UK had BSE. The EU ban on beef exports was not lifted until 2006.

By 1996, people were dying from human variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. By 2014, it had claimed 229 lives, 177 of them in Britain.