Bird flu outbreak in Japan

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDJan 23 2011

After six birds were confirmed to have avian flu, the Miyazaki Prefectural Government has begun culling more than 10,000 chickens at a local poultry farm southwest Japan.

The prefectural government announced on January 22nd that a genetic test had detected the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus in six chickens at the “Mori Furanjo Omagari Nojo” farm in the city of Miyazaki, where dozens of birds have been found dead. Til Jan 21^st 36 birds were found dead. A genetic test was conducted on seven chickens including two dead birds and six of them tested positive for the virus.

This has started the decision to kill 10,240 chickens at the farm. Slaughtering started at around 10:25 a.m. on Jan. 22. The prefectural government also enforced restrictions on the transfer of chickens and eggs within a radius of 10 kilometers from the farm under the Domestic Animal Infectious Diseases Control Law. The farm ministry meanwhile dispatched parliamentary secretary Kenko Matsuki to Miyazaki to monitor the situation.

The specimens would be sent to the National Institute of Animal Health in the Ibaraki Prefecture city of Tsukuba for further confirmation. In Miyazaki Prefecture, bird flu hit three farms in 2007, and 198,000 chickens were killed. The prefecture is known as one of Japan's largest poultry producers, with roughly 18.38 million chickens being raised as of 2009. About 1.5 million chickens are grown at 46 poultry farms in the restricted area. Miyazaki Prefecture was the nation’s second largest poultry producer after Kagoshima as of 2009.