Asia's first mad-cow scare jolts Japan
Asia's first mad-cow scare jolts Japan
TOKYO (Agencies): Japan woke up on Tuesday to news it could be
facing an outbreak of mad cow disease only months after the
government played down warnings that the nation's cattle were at
risk.
Ministry officials said chances of a serious outbreak in Japan
were low after news that a five-year old cow had tested positive
in Asia's first reported case of the brain-wasting disease also
known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).
But the nation's food and agriculture industry was bracing for
a possible crisis as some experts warned that the disease, whose
human variant is thought to have killed some 100 people in
Britain, could be more widespread.
The Holstein cow from a farm in Chiba prefecture near Tokyo
was slaughtered on August 6 after showing classic symptoms of the
disease, including difficulty in standing. A test on its brain
proved positive for the disease.
"This case is regrettable," Tsutomu Takebe, the agriculture
minister told reporters, saying the ministry was making every
effort to deal with the case and keep the public fully informed.
The Health Ministry has banned sales of meat products from the
farm where the cow was bred, and said the ban could be extended
to other farms. South Korea and Singapore moved quickly on
Tuesday to slap temporarily bans on meat imports from Japan.
Dr Stephen Dealler, a microbiologist who has worked on mad cow
disease, said the case may not lead to a British-style epidemic
but would linger for months as more cows were tested.
"By the time you see your first case, you've already spread
the disease quite a long way...By the time you've seen your first
one, you are going to see a lot more," he told Reuters on Monday.
The farm in the town of Shiroi where the infected cow was
found also has 49 other dairy cows, but a Chiba prefecture
official said these were healthy. Chiba prefecture itself has
about 60,000 cows used mostly for supplying the Tokyo area.
An official panel is to announce on Tuesday whether remains of
the diseased cow would be sent to specialist facilities in either
Britain or Switzerland for further tests.
Norio Tsuruoka, an official in the Chiba government's
livestock division, said about 14,000 to 16,000 liters (3,000-
3,500 gallons) of milk from the cow had been sold over two years
before it was slaughtered, although its meat was not used.
Scientists believe milk is unlikely to spread the disease.
Although Japan is famous for its expensive cuts of beef, it
exports very little -- only 358 tons of beef on the bone in 2000
-- and relies on imports for about two-thirds of its beef
consumption.
The source of the disease in Japan has yet to be confirmed,
but experts say it may have come from imports of risky feed from
Britain, a repeat of the process believed to have spread BSE from
UK herds to other European countries.
The disease is caused when cattle eat infected meat-and-bone
meal, or crushed animal carcasses, and cases have been uncovered
across Europe, most of which have been blamed on Britain.
Singapore has slapped an immediate ban on imports of beef from
Japan after the country reported its first case of mad cow
disease, a regulatory agency said on Tuesday.
"This is in response to the report that Japan may have found
its first case of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in a
local dairy cow there," the Agri-food and Veterinary Authority
(AVA) said in a statement.