The Japanese government formally confirmed a fresh mad cow disease late Tuesday, making it the ninth case in the country since 2001.
A slaughtered 21-month-old cow in the southern Hiroshima Prefecture has been diagnosed with the mad cow disease, or Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), said the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.
The Holstein was born in January 2002 in Hyogo Prefecture and had been raised in Fukuyama, the ministry said.
Japan's beef industry was badly hit after the first case emerged in September 2001. The deadly disease leads to sponge-likebrain and can be transferred to human being if contaminated beef is consumed. There has been no BSE-linked death report in Japan sofar.
The Fukuyama city government has incinerated the internal organs of the Holstein and temporarily shut down the facility where the animal was slaughtered.
The cow also became the youngest diagnosed with the disease, breaking the record set last month when a 24-month-old cow was found sick.
The source of these cases is yet to be determined. However, thegovernment believed it was either cows imported from Britain in the 1980s or Italian-made meat and bone meal used as feed and imported before 1990.