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Health authorities on Friday ordered the slaughter of 200,000 chickens in Okayama Prefecture after officials confirmed the country's fourth bird flu outbreak since early December.
DNA tests confirmed the pathogenic H5 strain of the virus at a chicken farm in Kasaoka after 28 chickens were found dead on Wednesday.
The Agriculture Ministry and the Self-Defense Forces began culling the chickens on Friday in an operation expected to take four days.
Last month, the government ordered the slaughter of more 50,000 chickens at poultry farms in Miyazaki and Yamaguchi prefectures.
Local authorities have locked down the Kasaoka farm and others within a 10-kilometer radius, with the movement of chickens banned while the area was being sanitised.
© Japan Today
6 Comments
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Makoto5
H5-what? H5N1 is a substantial human problem, not just birds. Need to know the N number in addition to the H5 fact.
nath
Bad way to start the year out.I hope no one gets infected by this virus.
Joanne Reynolds
Funny that all the bird flu cases so far have been in farms and not wild birds...
Surely if it was wild bird flu, then we would have 1000's of wild birds dropping out of the sky.
HaraldBloodaxe
So let me guess - we are in for a shortage of chicken in the next few months, to match the butter shortage?
Abe might get his 2 % inflation after all.
wtfjapan
once again the "saftey food japan" mentality is shot to ****. bring on the TPP. cheaper imported SAFE foods from countries like Australia and NZ with there strict quaranteen practices, theyve very few disease outbreaks in both agriculture and livestock in the last 40 yrs.
Cricky
Go. Macdoalds thats a lot of chivcken nuggets just add plastic and its a hit.