January 25, 2011

 

Highly lethal flu virus discovered in Japan's Miyazaki chickens

 

 

The avian flu virus detected in chickens at a Miyazaki poultry farm last week has been confirmed as a highly lethal strain closely resembling those found in dead birds in Japan's five other prefectures.

 

Hokkaido, Toyama, Tottori, Shimane and Kagoshima were hit by the same deadly strain over the past three months, Miyazaki prefectural officials said Monday (Jan 24).

 

''There is a possibility that migratory birds coming from nesting sites such as Siberia have carried the (bird flu) virus to the country,'' an official at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said, adding the government will swiftly track down the route of infection.

 

The Environment Ministry said Monday (Jan 24) it has raised the alert level to its highest degree of 3 to strengthen surveillance of wild birds inhabiting the area within a 10-kilometre radius of the Miyazaki farm and it will conduct on-site inspections.

 

''We will do whatever we can to prevent further expansion (of avian flu infection). We will do our best,'' Prime Minister Naoto Kan said Monday (Jan 24).

 

The prefecture, Japan's No. 2 poultry producer after Kagoshima as of 2009, said it has completed a series of preventive measures, such as incinerating around 10,000 chickens in Miyazaki and burying and burning their droppings.

 

Birds infected with the flu have been also detected at a poultry farm in the town of Shintomi located about 8.5 kilometres northeast of the farm in the city of Miyazaki.

 

The Ground Self-Defense Force dispatched a 170-member team to Shintomi to help with burying the culled chickens and other work from Tuesday (Jan 25). The Miyazaki government expects that it will take several days to complete the cull and burying, the officials said.

 

The prefectural government has inspected 25 farms located within a 10-kilometre radius of the affected farm in Shintomi, but no abnormalities have been found there, the officials said.

 

To quickly stem the outbreak, the local authority slaughtered about 27,000 birds at farms in the town from Sunday (Jan 23) night through Monday (Jan 24), and will speed up a cull of the 410,000 chickens there, they added.

 

Miyazaki Gov. Shunji Kono said the prefecture has already carried out necessary steps on the assumption that there remain birds infected with the highly lethal avian flu, but it will take additional measures to prevent the flu from spreading.

 

The bird flu outbreaks in Miyazaki follow one in late November at a poultry farm in Shimane Prefecture and come amid the spread of avian influenza among wild birds across Japan, including a hooded crane found in the Izumi Plains in Kagoshima Prefecture, neighbouring Miyazaki Prefecture.

 

The outbreaks are another blow to local farming, which was hit by bird flu in 2007 and a foot-and-mouth epidemic last year that led to the slaughter of about 290,000 cows and pigs.