January 15, 2007

 

Japan begins culling chickens after bird flu confirmed

 

 

Authorities from Japan's Miyazaki prefecture, the largest breeder of chickens in Japan, culled around 8,100 chickens Sunday after bird flu killed nearly 4,000 birds at a poultry farm last week.

 

All 12,000 chickens at the Taniguchi Furanjo Kurosaka farm are scheduled to be removed and incinerated Monday (Jan 15).

 

Veterinarians were sent Sunday to 16 nearby chicken farms and found no abnormality, the prefecture's animal health division said.

 

At the Taniguchi farm, those chickens alive were killed with carbon dioxide and placed in tightly sealed bags.

 

About 150 workers were sent there by the anti-bird flu headquarters of the prefecture.

 

After the chickens are removed, the farm would be disinfected Tuesday. If no reports of infection is reported after three weeks, the prefectural government would lift a ban on movements of chickens and eggs from 16 other farms within the 10-kilometre radius from the bird flu-hit facility.

 

The 16 farms are expected to undergo inspections on Wednesday and one week thereafter. The prefectural government said the farms have an estimated total of 194,000 chickens.

 

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry said Saturday the cause of the large number of chicken deaths at the farm had been confirmed to be the H5 variety of bird flu. A government laboratory is checking if it was the lethal H5N1 strain of the virus.    

 

Japan's most recent H5N1 outbreak occurred in Kyoto in 2004. Several outbreaks of less virulent bird flu viruses not harmful to humans occurred in 2005 near Tokyo.

 

The Agriculture Ministry ordered a nationwide inspection of poultry farms to detect any signs of sick birds while environment officials began a national survey to investigate whether migratory birds might have brought the virus from other countries.