Starting Monday, European beef won't be allowed into Australia or New Zealand in the wake of a mad cow disease scare, government officials said Friday.

The decision was made in order to keep the country's status as being free of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, said Australian Agriculture Minister Warren Truss.

Beef from 30 European countries, including Belgium, Denmark, France and Germany, will be affected by the ban.

Australia and New Zealand have one of the safest food supplies in the world and the current steps are intended to keep it that way, Ian Lindenmayer, managing director of the Australia-New Zealand Food Authority told the Associated Press.

British beef was banned from Australia in 1996 in an attempt to protect people against the deadly Creutzfeldt-jakob disease, or the human form of BSE.

Mad cow disease first surfaced in Britain in 1986. As many as 85 people have died after contracting the disease, which is untreatable and incurable. So far, 4.3 million cattle have been slaughtered in Europe, to keep the disease in check.