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Mad Cow Disease Found in Japan -Ministry

TOKYO (Reuters) - One case of mad cow disease has been confirmed in Japan after

a cow tested positive in the Chiba area near Tokyo, Japan's agriculture ministry

said on Monday

 

It issued the statement ahead of a media briefing at the ministry. No further

details were immediately available.

 

This is the first known case of the disease in Japan and in Asia.

 

Mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE (news - web sites)),

had been confirmed only in western Europe until recently.

 

Scientists believe BSE is transmitted through infected meat-and-bone meal fed to

cattle and may cause the brain-wasting variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (news -

web sites) (vCJD) in humans, which has killed around 100 people in Britain.

 

The United Nations (news - web sites)' Food and Agriculture Organization (news -

web sites) (FAO) said in June that Eastern Europe, Asia and the Middle East were

particularly at risk from mad cow disease because they imported large quantities

of meat-based animal feed from western Europe.

 

Japanese agriculture officials had said the risk of a BSE breakout in Japan was

very small because most of the bonemeal it imported was used as fertilizer.

 

But a spokesman for the European Commission (news - web sites)'s Tokyo office

said in June that the Japanese government had blocked the publication of a

European Commission report that said mad cow disease could theoretically break

out in Japan.

 

Using Japanese government data, EU scientists had given Japan a risk-rating of

three on a rising scale of one to four. They have judged Australia and the

United States, by contrast, to be free of any risk of BSE.

 

Veterinary experts from the European Union (news - web sites) have been working

to assess the degree of risk of bovine spongiform encephalopathy in non-member

countries to ensure contaminated meat is not reimported into the 15-nation bloc.

 

Japan started in April to check for BSE in cattle that showed abnormal symptoms

before they died