February 5, 2007

 

Japan central, local governments hold drill for bird flu outbreak
 

 

Japanese central and local authorities tested their abilities to cope with a bird flu outbreak among humans on Monday, a government official said, amid concerns over the deadly virus's potential to spark a pandemic.

 

Police, fire, health and other officials took part in the drill in south-western Tokushima prefecture (state) on the island of Shikoku, Cabinet official Kazuma Takago said. It was the first time that central government authorities have held a drill for a human bird flu outbreak with local officials, he said.

 

The scenario involved a Japanese man who returned from abroad infected with a variant of the deadly H5N1 virus, and tested authorities' abilities to track and cope with the resulting outbreak, Takago said.

 

He added that the plan was laid out before recent outbreaks of the H5N1 virus among poultry in western and southern Japan.

 

The H5N1 virus has killed or prompted the slaughter of millions of birds across Asia since late 2003, and caused the deaths of at least 165 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

 

Japan has confirmed only one human H5N1 infection, and no human deaths.

 

Bird flu remains hard for humans to catch, but international experts fear it may mutate into a form that could spread easily between humans and potentially kill millions around the world.

 

Separately, Japan temporarily halted all imports of live poultry and poultry meat from Britain after an outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu there last week, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said.

 

The ban went into effect Saturday, and the government has requested further information from British authorities about the outbreak, the ministry said in a statement Sunday.

 

Some 2,500 turkeys died of the virus last week on a farm owned by Bernard Matthews PLC, Europe's largest turkey producer. It was the first time H5N1 has been found on a British farm.

 

Japan imported 161,530 poultry birds from Britain in 2006, according to the Finance Ministry.