Advanced Search
Business | Metro | Nation | World | Sports | Features | Specials | Delta Stories
 
 
Japan confirms H5N1 virus in 2nd bird flu case in southern prefecture
28/1/2007 10:04

The highly virulent H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus was confirmed yesterday by the agriculture ministry in the second case in a month in southern Japan's Miyazaki Prefecture.
The ministry confirmed the virus was the H5 variety on Thursday.
Government of the prefecture decided on Friday to cull 5,000 chickens at the virus-hit Sato Broiler farm in the city of Hyuga and cull another 5,000 chickens on a farm adjacent to it as prevention measure.
According to local officials, the work at the two farms will take several days and the culled poultry will be buried in a forest nearby.
About 3,200 birds died in mass from Monday to Thursday at the Sato Broiler farm. It was the second outbreak of bird flu in a month in Miyazaki Prefecture and the sixth in Japan since 2004.
Earlier this month, a farm in the town of Kiyotake, 60 kilometers away from Hyuga, saw 3,500 of its birds killed by the H5N1 strain of bird flu and had all of its 12,000 birds incinerated.
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.



Xinhua