March 8, 2004 The Mercury (Australia)

A second round of tests done by a German research institute confirmed the eight-year-old holstein cow had the brain-wasting illness known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE.

The animal was raised on a farm in Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost main island, where four other BSE-infected cows were found.

Authorities were also waiting for the final results on a cow from Miyagi prefecture in northern Japan that tested positive in a preliminary test for the disease last week.

The 16-year-old beef cow was found ill on Thursday after being brought to a slaughterhouse.

The two latest cases bring to 12 the number of cases of mad cow disease in Japan since September 2001.

Eating beef from an infected cow causes the fatal human illness Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.