A cow in Ibaraki Prefecture confirmed as Japan's latest case of mad cow disease has exhibited a similar prion structure to that found in two cases in Italy, a Japanese expert said Sunday, referring to recently announced Italian research.
With the agriculture ministry trying to trace the source of infection for the latest case, Takashi Onodera, a professor at the University of Tokyo, raised the possibility that an infected cow in Italy became the source for the case.
"It is possible that an infected cow in Italy was imported into the country as meat-and-bone meal and became the source of infection for the eighth case," said Onodera, who heads a government study panel on mad cow disease, which is formally known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy.