January 26, 2011

 

Japan's Kagoshima chickens test positive for bird flu

 

 

After a preliminary examination at a poultry farm in Izumi, Kagoshima Prefecture, eight chickens tested positive for bird flu, the prefectural government said Tuesday (Jan 25).

 

The results will likely be available by Tuesday (Jan 25) night. If the chickens are confirmed infected, the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry will dispatch its parliamentary secretary Kenko Matsuki and a team of specialists to Kagoshima Prefecture to try to pin down the infection route, ministry officials said.

 

In a meeting of a task force set up to deal with the matter, farm minister Michihiko Kano said, ''It is necessary to proceed with appropriate measures to prevent a further infection.''

 

If confirmed, all the 8,600 chickens being raised at the Izumi poultry farm will be killed.

 

Kagoshima, whose total value of chicken and egg shipments in 2009 came to the largest JPY77.1 billion (US$939.27 million) among the 47 prefectures, has already ordered some 160 farms within a 10-kilometre radius of the house in question to refrain from moving their chickens totalling 5.25 million and eggs.

 

Also on Tuesday (Jan 25), the Shimane prefectural government said it has detected the deadly H5N1 strain flu virus from wild birds found dead near Lake Shinji.

 

The Environment Ministry, meanwhile, began research to see if the lethal strain detected in Miyazaki Prefecture has been spreading, ministry officials said.

 

Researchers started collecting droppings of wild birds in areas within 10-kilometre radiuses from two poultry farms in the city of Miyazaki and the town of Shintomi where the outbreaks of bird flu have been confirmed since last week.

 

Three researchers from the Japan Wildlife Research Center began the survey at a location along the Hitotsuse River that stretches between Miyazaki and Shintomi on behalf of the ministry.

 

''We will check if infections might have spread in view of the possibility that migratory birds may have acted as virus carriers'' to chicks at the farms, said Masahide Kubota, one of the researchers.

 

Such possibility was underlined Tuesday (Jan 25) when the farm ministry said the birds from Miyazaki were infected with the H5N1 strain, whose gene sequence is at least 99% identical to viruses detected from chickens in Shimane Prefecture and from mute swans in Toyama Prefecture last year.

 

The examination by the Environment Ministry was prompted by successive detections of the highly virulent strain in the two municipalities.

 

It will take two to three weeks before the laboratory results on wild bird droppings are available, the ministry officials said.

 

The ministry raised the alert level Monday (Jan 24) to its highest degree of 3 to strengthen surveillance of wild birds inhabiting the area within 10-km radiuses from the two farms in Miyazaki Prefecture.

 

Kano said the government plans to complete a cull of some 410,000 chickens at the Shintomi poultry farm by Thursday (Jan 27).

 

Some 150 Ground Self-Defense Force personnel joined the governments' efforts to cull the 410,000 chickens at the Shintomi poultry farm.

 

Miyazaki Prefecture said it completed destroying about 50,000 eggs shipped from the Miyazaki poultry.