November 4, 2003
9th Case of BSE Detected in Japan
A bull in Hiroshima was tested positive for the mad cow disease, which upon confirmation would be the ninth case detected in this country, health officials said Tuesday.
The 21-month-old Holstein tested positive when it was brought to a slaughterhouse in Hiroshima state in western Japan, according to Yuki Ueda, a spokesman at the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.
The bull was slaughtered.
Ueda said the ministry held a meeting of experts to formally review and confirm the case, which would be Japan's ninth.
Mad cow is thought to cause the fatal human variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Japan was the first country to detect the presence of an infected cow outside Europe, where it has devastated cattle farms.