Japanese agricultural officials confirmed yesterday that the virulent H5N1 bird flu virus caused the deaths of thousands of chickens at a poultry farm in southern Japan this week, Kyodo news agency reported.
At least 2,400 chickens have died since Wednesday at a farm in the town of Kiyotake in Miyazaki Prefecture, and prefectural officials were conducting bird flu tests.
The final results confirmed that the deaths were linked to the H5N1 strain of the virus, Kyodo said.
Miyazaki and Agricultural Ministry officials said the report could not be confirmed immediately.
Although bird flu is generally not harmful to humans, the H5N1 strain of the virus has claimed at least 157 lives worldwide since it began ravaging Asian poultry farms in late 2003, according to the WHO.
There has been one confirmed human case involving the H5N1 virus in Japan, but no reported human deaths. Japan's most recent outbreak occurred in Kyoto in 2004. Japan has had several outbreaks of bird flu viruses that are not harmful to humans since then.
On Friday, the government set up a task force and ordered 20 poultry farms within a 10km radius of the affected operator to halt shipments of eggs and chickens for the time being, said Toru Inoue, another prefectural official.
The Agriculture Ministry also ordered a nationwide inspection of poultry farms to detect any signs of sick birds, and environment officials began a national survey to look into the possibility that it might have been brought by migratory birds from other parts of Asia.
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
With a monthly pension barely sufficient to buy 15 eggs or a small bag of rice, Cuba’s elderly people struggle to make ends meet in one of Latin America’s poorest and fastest-aging countries. As the communist island battles its deepest economic crisis in three decades, the state is finding it increasingly hard to care for about 2.4 million inhabitants — more than one-quarter of the population — aged 60 and older. Sixty is the age at which women — for men it is 65 — qualify for the state pension, which starts at 1,528 pesos per month. That is less than US$13