The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says that the number of cases have been falling steadily over the last three years.
With most health professionals and worldwide pandemic experts on high alert over the threat of avian flu, it's a bit of good news to know that the fight against another deadly and meddlesome disease is being won.
In 2005, only 474 animals died of the deadly brain disease around the world, compared with 878 in 2004 and 1646 in 2003.
At the disease's height in 1992 several tens of thousands of animals perished due to the disease according to a study done by the World Animal Health Organization.
Only five human deaths resulting from variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (vCJD), believed to be the human form of BSE, were reported worldwide in 2005. All of them were in the United Kingdom -- the country most affected by the disease -- where nine deaths were attributed in 2004 and 18 in 2003.
