Japan said yesterday that it could be afflicted by its first outbreak of the lethal H5N1 bird flu strain in three years, as the disease killed an Indonesian woman and spread closer to Vietnam's largest city.
An official at a Jakarta hospital said yesterday that a woman had died of bird flu and four other people were being treated for bird flu symptoms.
The past week has seen a flare-up of infections, echoing past winters, the season when the virus appears to thrive.
Some 750 chickens died on a farm in the Miyazaki area of southwestern Japan on Wednesday and Thursday, an outbreak that if confirmed as due to H5N1 would be the first in Japan since 2004. There were no reports of human infections.
Masayuki Kunii, senior vice minister at Japan's Agriculture Ministry, told reporters yesterday: "It's not confirmed at this point that it's the highly virulent influenza, but the chances remain very high."
Results of a simple preliminary test for the bird flu virus were positive, but agricultural officials said it might take several days to determine the exact strain of the virus.
Tests could show as early as today whether the strain is the H5 or H7 subtype, but more time is needed to see whether it is the virulent H5N1 or less virulent H5N2.
Officials said that considering the number of chickens that have died in a short period, the H5N1 strain could not be ruled out. No further bird deaths had been reported as of yesterday morning.
Agricultural officials later yesterday ordered a nationwide inspection of all poultry farms.
If a bird flu outbreak is confirmed at the farm, located in Miyazaki on Japan's southernmost main island of Kyushu, all of the more than 12,000 birds there would be culled.
The farm has been placed under quarantine, and the agriculture ministry has prohibited any items from leaving a 10km radius from the site of the suspected outbreak.
In Indonesia, which has the highest human death toll from bird flu of any nation, the number of deaths rose to 59 with the death of the 37-year-old woman on Thursday.
The woman's husband and son have also been hospitalized with bird flu symptoms. An official at the Jakarta hospital where they are being treated said that two other women were being treated for the same symptoms and their conditions were not good.
In Vietnam, where bird flu killed 42 of the 93 people infected from 2003 to 2005, a government report said bird flu in poultry has moved closer to Ho Chi Minh City, the nation's largest urban area.
The Agriculture Ministry report said tests done after 20 chickens were found dead on a farm in Vinh Long Province, 137km southwest of the city, had confirmed the virus.
RSS