Farming News - Japan facing avian bird flu pandemic
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Japan facing avian bird flu pandemic
Update 27 January TOKYO, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- A Japanese poultry farm in Toyashi, Aichi Prefecture may be the latest to have its chickens contract the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu, the farm ministry said Wednesday. In Aichi Prefecture, some 450 chickens died in just four days through Wednesday, and four chickens have already tested positive in preliminary examinations for the virulent strain of the avian flu virus, Aichi prefectural government officials said. The H5N1 bird flu virus has been conformed in Toyashi. Japanese health authorities on Thursday said a fifth outbreak of bird flu since November had hit a poultry farm in the central region of Aichi, as local officials began a cull of 150,000 chickens there Japan in December 2010 confirmed its first outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of bird flu since 2007 at a poultry farm in Shimane Prefecture. The impact to Japanese production of chicken meat and eggs has so far been limited, reports Reuters. From the four cases of the bird flu outbreak thus far, a total of about 452,000 chickens were culled, or around 0.05 percent of Japan's total output of chickens, both egg-producing and for meat, according to the farm ministry's data. Disease could spread via wild birds Officials are concerned the pandemic could spread nationwide as a number of wild birds have also been found infected with the virus, including Japan's iconic hooded cranes who use a wintering place close to one of the infected farms. Reiterating Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan's comments in the morning, farm minister Michihiko Kano told local reporters, "We will do our utmost to prevent the infection from spreading." Chickens at a farm In Japan's southwestern prefecture of Kagoshima have also tested positive for bird flu, local government officials said Wednesday. The prefectural government said that of the 10 birds tested for the virus, eight of them tested positive. The culling of around 8, 600 chickens has already started at the poultry farm in Izumi, Kagoshima Prefecture, according to the officials. Two farms were found to have infected chickens in neighboring Miyazaki Prefecture, the nation's largest poultry-producing region, at the beginning of the week and the problem was deemed serious enough to despatch a 170-member Self-Defense Force team to help cull the birds. A farm in Shimane Prefecture, southeastern Japan, was the scene of the first case of bird flu this season. The subsequent spread of the virus is being called a pandemic by some veterinary experts. The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry sent its secretary Kenko Matsuki and a team of specialists to Kagoshima Prefecture to try to locate the exact route of the infection, according to statements by ministry officials earlier. Prime Minister Naoto Kan also said early on Wednesday that both local and central governments will do their utmost to stamp out the latest outbreak of the virus.