OTTAWA - A new case of mad cow disease has been detected in the western Canadian province of Alberta, the government's Food Inspection Agency announced Friday.

The degenerative ailment known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was discovered in a six-year-old slaughtered cow, but authorities offered assurances that no part of the animal has entered the food chain.

It was the 14th case of mad cow disease discovered in Canada since 2003.

BSE is the suspected cause of a similar brain-destroying illness in humans called variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD). - AFP/vm