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Japanese officials begin cull after test confirms avian flu

Agricultural authorities began culling thousands of chickens at a southern Japanese poultry farm yesterday after test results found a pathogenic strain of the bird flu virus, officials said amid the nation's latest outbreak of the disease.

Some 4,000 chickens have died at a farm in the town of Kiyotake in Japan's southern prefecture of Miyazaki since last week, and local officials said late on Saturday that the virus belonged to the broad H5 family.

It was not yet clear whether the virus was the H5N1 strain that has killed dozens of people worldwide since 2003. But prefectural poultry official Keijiro Tarumizu said test results so far suggested that the virus was virulent enough for all the chickens at the farm to be destroyed.

Yesterday, about 150 local officials in white protective gear began culling the farm's surviving birds, packing them in plastic bags for fatal gassing before burying or burning them. Public broadcaster NHK showed the operation at the farm, where ground was covered with white disinfectant.

The H5 subtype is a highly pathogenic form of the virus among poultry, but is not necessarily fatal to humans.

Since 2003, the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus has claimed at least 157 lives worldwide, according to the WHO.

Tests

Officials said they are running DNA tests to determine further details of the virus.

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. So far, almost all human deaths from bird flu have been a result of direct contact with infected birds.

Japan has confirmed one human case involving the H5N1 virus but reported no human deaths. Japan's most recent H5N1 outbreak occurred in Kyoto in 2004. Several outbreaks of less virulent bird flu viruses not harmful to humans occurred in 2005 near Tokyo.

The government set up a taskforce on Friday and banned shipments of eggs and 330,000 chickens at 16 poultry farms within a 10km radius of the affected operator.

The Agriculture Ministry 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 migratory birds might have brought a bird flu virus from outside Japan.

Miyazaki, about 900km southwest of Tokyo, is the nation's largest poultry producing region.
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