February 2, 2011

 

Japan's Miyazaki reports seventh bird flu outbreak

 

 

On Tuesday (Feb 1), 191 chickens had died at a poultry farm in the city of Miyazaki and that six of the seven dead birds it took samples from for preliminary tests had tested positive for avian influenza, the government said.

 

A close examination of the six dead birds confirmed they were infected with highly pathogenic avian influenza, the seventh bird flu outbreak in the prefecture this winter, the local government said.

 

Confirmation will lead the local government to impose a ban on the transportation of chickens and eggs within a 10-kilometre radius of the farm, which will cover part of the city of Miyakonojo, Japan's largest chicken and egg producer as of 2006.

 

The prefectural government has already shut down half of the 10 chicken meat-processing factories, and the imposition of a transportation ban will force the closure of a sixth factory, which falls in the zone. This will make it even harder for poultry farmers to ship their products.

 

Meanwhile, the prefectural government said the viruses which had triggered the prefecture's third, fourth and fifth outbreaks of highly pathogenic bird flu were confirmed as a highly virulent strain, as was the case in the first and second outbreaks.

 

The third and fourth outbreaks were in the towns of Tsuno and Kawaminami, while the fifth in the city of Nobeoka.

 

In Tottori Prefecture, meanwhile, the local government said Tuesday (Feb 1) it has detected the highly virulent strain of the H5N1 virus in two wild birds that tested positive for avian flu in earlier DNA tests.

 

The infection, involving a tufted duck and hooded gull found in a weakened state in Yonago last month, marks the second outbreak of a highly virulent strain of bird flu in the prefecture this winter.

 

No signs of infection have been confirmed so far among the 924,000 chickens being raised at 18 poultry farms within a 10-km radius of the location in Yonago where the two wild birds were found, the local government said.

 

Also on Tuesday (Feb 1), the Hokkaido government said detailed tests it conducted on a dead whooper swan recovered in the town of Hamanaka in mid-January had detected the H5N1 virus, the sixth case of a wild bird infected with bird flu in Hokkaido.

 

There are 10 poultry farms within a 10-km radius of where the swan was found, according to the Hokkaido government.

 

The local government also authorised chicken farms outside a 5-km radius from the farm to resume shipping their products.

 

The authorisation opened the path for a combined 900 chickens of the Mikawa Akadori brand from a farm in the city of Shinshiro being transported into Maruto Poultry Co., a chicken-meat processing factory in Toyohashi.

 

Minoru Tada, chief of Maruto's marketing department, said, ''We used to incur losses of more than JPY1 million (US$12,275) a day during the period when we suspended our factory's operations, partly because we had to outsource processing operations to other factories. But now our business has returned to normal at long last.''