Japan confirms H5 strain in 3rd bird flu outbreak
29/1/2007 15:13
A local government in Japan confirmed today that the third case of bird
flu outbreak within the month involved the highly virulent H5 strain of avian
influenza, Kyodo News said. Dozens of chickens died of H5 infection in a
poultry farm in the city of Takahashi, Okayama prefecture during the past days,
the prefectural government said on Monday morning. Earlier this month, two
bird flu cases involving the deadly H5N1 strain were reported in southern
Japan's Miyazaki prefecture, where thousands of birds died in two chicken farms,
and the rest tens of thousands were culled later. Bird flu infections hit
dozens of farms in central Japan's Ibaraki prefecture in 2005 and 2006,
resulting in the killing of at least 5.8 million poultry. It is feared that
the bird-to-bird disease of avian flu currently spread around the globe could
mutate into a virus transmissible between humans and led to a
pandemic.
Xinhua
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