June 30, 2005

Five more farms in Japan found with weak strain of bird flu

Five poultry farms surrounding the one recently hit by the bird flu virus in Japan's Ibaraki Prefecture have showed signs that they had also been infected with the disease, said the country's agricultural ministry.

The five farms in Mitsukaido are located 500 to 600 meters from the original area but the exact type of virus they were found with was yet to be confirmed.

Although health officials said there was no possibility of people becoming infected from eating chicken meat and eggs from those farms, the avian flu-infected area could become larger than initially thought.

The ministry panel on poultry disease would study whether it would be necessary to destroy the chickens at the five farms although government workers are in the process of culling 25,000 chickens at the first infected farm.

Experts said it was probable that a very weak non-lethal strain of avian flu has spread throughout the area without the farm operators' knowledge. There have been no reports about widespread deaths among chickens at the five farms. However, a decrease in egg-laying rate could not be confirmed at this point.

Samples were also taken at five other farms located 600m to 5 km from the infected farm but all tests were negative.