030152 Japan Confirms 7th Case Of Mad Cow DiseaseJanuary 23, 2003Tokyo - Japanese health officials confirmed the nation's seventh case of mad cow disease, the second one in less than a week. After the third and final examination of the dead cow's brain and spinal chord samples, experts declared that the animal had been infected by mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (news - web sites), a Heath Ministry spokesman Shotaro Aratsu said. The previous case was confirmed earlier. The latest case involved a 6-year-old Holstein, born and raised with 140 other cattle at a farm in Abashiri, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) northeast of Tokyo, Aratsu said. The health ministry has ordered the farm to keep its remaining cattle inside their compound to confine a possible spread of the disease. Ministry officials will start examining the farm's surviving cows and their feed to track down the route of infection. Japan began screening all cattle destined for human consumption for the disease in October 2001, one month after it became the first country to find an infected cow outside of Europe, where the illness has devastated cattle farms. All infected cows in Japan so far involved Holsteins born around the same time, including the two found this week that were born in 1996 on Hokkaido. The illness is believed to have spread through cattle feed containing the meat and bones of infected animals. The bovine illness is thought to cause the fatal human variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Japan has banned the use of meat-and-bone meal as cattle feed, and infected cows are incinerated.
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