Bird flu hits poultry farm in southwestern Japan

Japan's Miyazaki prefecture started culling on Tuesday some 122,000 chickens at a poultry farm where highly pathogenic bird flu strain had been detected.

The farm in southwestern Japan reported on Monday afternoon that some 100 chickens had been found dead, five of which and two live ones were found positive for bird flu in a preliminary test.

Local government has ordered over 140 farms within 10 km of the farm which keep a total of some 5.63 million chickens to stop transporting poultry out of the area.

Miyazaki prefecture kept about 27.4 million broiler chickens as of February, the largest number in Japan's 47 prefectures, according to government data.

Over 60 bird flu cases have been reported around Japan this winter, the most in history, with highly pathogenic bird flu strain detected in wild birds, poultry as well as birds kept in zoos.

A total of over 780,000 poultry have been culled at poultry farms in the prefectures of Aomori and Niigata as well as in the northernmost Hokkaido in Japan since November due to the spreading of bird flu virus.

source: Xinhua