Japan
confirmed a third outbreak of bird flu at a poultry farm, about 310 kilometers
southeast of
Tokyo,
but it was unclear whether the type of virus is a H5N1 strain, the agriculture
ministry said on Monday.
The ministry issued a statement saying that a H5 bird flu
virus strain was detected among chickens at the farm in the city of
Takahashi in
Okayama
Prefecture.
The bird flu outbreak has killed 49 out of 12,000 birds
since Friday.
But no human case was reported in this and two other
outbreaks of bird flu this month.
The
last human case of H5N1 was reported three years ago.
The ministry has ordered all chickens at the affected farm
to be culled and the site to be disinfected, according to the ministry’s
statement.
Additionally, eighteen other farms keeping 950,000 chickens within 10 kilometers
of the infected farm have been isolated, and road disinfection stations are
being set up.
In the meantime, the ministry said movement of people and
goods within 6 miles of the affected farm was restricted.
Earlier this month,
Japan
reported two H5N1 outbreaks among poultry in the southwestern
prefecture of
Miyazaki.
The H5N1 virus in the two outbreaks was suspected of being
the
Qinghai
Lake
sub-strain that has spread to the
Middle East
and several eastern European countries over the last 18 months.
The virus is still highly active in
Japan this
year. In 2004, the country reported a total of four H5N1 outbreaks between
January and March.
H5N1 is a threat primarily to birds.
More than 200 million birds worldwide have died
from the virus or been slaughtered because of the virus since 2003.
The bird flu virus has infected 267 people in ten countries
worldwide and killed more than 161 people, according to the World Health
Organization.
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