A health ministry panel confirmed Wednesday that a dairy cow raised in western Japan has tested positive for mad cow disease, making it the nation's 25th case of BSE, ministry officials said.

The carcass of the 71-month-old Holstein born in Hokkaido, which was raised on a farm in Nagi, Okayama Prefecture, will be incinerated and not enter the human food chain, they said.

The cow was born before the government banned meat-and-bone meal in 2001. MBM, as the feed is known, is suspected of being a cause of the disease, which is formally called bovine spongiform encephalopathy.