March 11, 2004

 

Bird Flu Virus Detected In Osaka, Japan

 

Poultry farms in Osaka, Japan are on high alert after bird flu was detected in the prefecture in the form of a crow. This is Japan's third case of crow infection following the deaths of two crows in neighboring Kyoto Prefecture, the prefectural government said Wednesday.

 

Elsewhere in Japan, Oita Prefecture declared an end to the outbreak of bird flu in the prefecture, while Osaka, Kyoto and seven other prefectures in the Kinki region asked the state for financial aid to deal with the disease and declining prices of chicken and eggs.

 

Meanwhile, the agriculture ministry reimposed a total ban on imports of live birds, chicken and other poultry meat from Canada following the confirmation of a virulent strain of bird flu in British Columbia.

 

In the Osaka case, the crow was caught by a police officer after residents of the house notified authorities about the bird, which died on Sunday.

 

The house is located in an area within a 30-kilometer radius of a poultry farm hit by bird flu in Tamba, Kyoto Prefecture. The area is currently subject to shipping restrictions on eggs and chickens.

 

However, an Osaka government official said, "It is difficult to imagine that the crow flew from Tamba if we consider the area in which a crow normally moves."

 

The prefectural government will dispatch officials to check chickens at two poultry farms located within a 10-kilometer radius of the house.

 

The family that notified the authorities remains healthy. But the Osaka government said they will keep monitoring the police officer and a livestock hygiene official, both of whom touched the crow.

 

The crow tested negative for bird flu in an initial check on Monday, but further examination Wednesday found it was infected with the virus.

 

The authorities will continue tests at the National Institute of Animal Health in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, to check whether the virus is highly virulent.

 

Prefectural livestock hygiene authorities have disinfected the police box in which the officer is stationed, the house, a patrol car used to transport the crow, as well as the police station to which the crow was taken.

 

In the Kyoto cases, two crows were found dead Friday and later confirmed to have contracted the highly virulent H5N1 type bird flu virus.

 

One crow was found in Tamba at Asada Nosan Co.'s Funai poultry farm, which has been hit by bird flu, and the other was found in neighboring Sonobe.

 

Also on Wednesday, the Oita prefectural government declared an end to the outbreak in the prefecture and completely lifted its ban on egg and chicken shipments at midnight, 23 days after the infectious disease hit the prefecture.

 

Oita became the second prefecture to be affected by the disease following Yamaguchi Prefecture, which was hit by Japan's first case of bird flu in 79 years. Yamaguchi has already declared it is safe.

 

The Oita government lifted the remaining restrictions on shipments from an area within a 5-kilometer radius of a household in the town of Kokonoe, where seven bantams were found dead. The highly virulent H5N1 type of virus was later detected.

 

Kyoto Gov. Keiji Yamada visited finance, health and agriculture ministries to convey a petition for financial aid to their ministers as the head of a group of governors in the Kinki region.

 

In the petition, the group which also includes Fukui, Mie, Shiga, Hyogo, Nara, Wakayama and Tokushima stressed the need for the state to address the impact on local economies and take drastic measures.

 

In Kyoto, the prefectural government announced it will allocate 800 million yen under a supplementary budget to be submitted to its assembly for disinfection and subsidies to poultry farms affected by a local bird flu outbreak.

 

Kyoto's restrictions on chicken and egg transport to prevent a further spread have remained in place at hundreds of local poultry farms.

 

The Hyogo prefectural government also announced plans to use 400 million yen to counter bird flu. The prefectural assembly approved part of the cost in an extra budget.

 

In other developments, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare will start this month randomly checking chickens for bird flu before they are brought to poultry processors as part of efforts to prevent an epidemic and ease consumer anxiety, according to ministry sources.

 

The move is aimed at understanding how the virus has spread in Japan and preventing farmers from putting chicken meat that is possibly infected on the market, as in a recent case in Kyoto.

 

The inspections are expected to help to prevent employees at the processors and other chickens from being infected, although there have been no reports of human infection through eating chicken meat.