Confirmed Outbreak in Poultry - Miyazaki, Japan

[Niko]

Re: Suspected Poultry Outbreak - Japan

Re: Suspected Poultry Outbreak - Japan

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070123/hl_afp/healthflujapan_070123131100

Thanks Mamabird.

Another outbreak of bird flu suspected in Japan

2 hours, 42 minutes ago

Japanese authorities have found a suspected fresh case of bird flu in the same province where an outbreak of the virulent virus was reported earlier this month.
A total of 569 chickens were reported dead as of Tuesday at a poultry farm in the city of Hyuga, said a government official for Miyazaki prefecture on the southern island of Kyushu Tuesday.
"We examined 11 of the dead birds and one of them tested positive for avian influenza," the prefecture's agricultural division said in a statement.
The farm with some 50,000 broilers was in a different location from the last outbreak of the virus that was confirmed in the province on January 13, and was later found to be an especially toxic H5N1 strain.
"We are separating the viruses and will ship samples to a national laboratory for further tests in a few days," Mamoru Tsuneyoshi, an official of the veterinary division, said by telephone.
It is not confirmed yet whether the new case of bird flu involves the virulent H5N1 strain.
In the earlier case, some 3,900 chickens were found dead on a farm, prompting local authorities to slaughter the remaining 8,100 birds to contain the deadly virus.
The Japanese farm ministry announced Tuesday that the virus detected in the earlier outbreak was the same strain as that sampled near Qinghai Lake in western China in 2005.
The same strain of bird flu also has been detected in Mongolia, South Korea and Russia, the ministry said.
The virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed about 160 people worldwide since late 2003 and one of the ways it is transmitted is through contact with infected birds' waste.
Health officials have warned that if the disease mutated into a form easily transmissible by humans, it could cause a pandemic with the potential to kill millions of people.

 

[yielddude]

Re: Suspected Poultry Outbreak - Japan

Re: Suspected Poultry Outbreak - Japan

DESCRIPTION
Bird flu is suspected in the deaths of 17 chickens at a farm in western Japan, the agriculture ministry said Saturday, just hours after it confirmed an earlier outbreak of bird flu was caused by the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus. Authorities were investigating a possible outbreak at a poultry farm in Takahashi, western Okayama prefecture (state), where 17 birds had died since Friday, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said in a statement. "The number of deaths is small, but we decided it was better to announce the possibility of an outbreak sooner rather than later," ministry official Yasushi Yamaguchi said. The dead birds would be checked at an animal health facility in the state for the bird flu virus, he said. In the meantime, the remaining 12,000 birds at the farm would be quarantined, while neighboring farms asked to keep a watch on their own poultry stocks, the statement said. akahashi is about 560 kilometers (347 miles) west of Tokyo. The news came hours after the ministry reported that tests had confirmed the deadly H5N1 virus killed 3,000 chickens at a poultry farm in southern Japan earlier this week.

A state laboratory had analyzed samples taken from the dead birds from a farm in Hyuga in Miyazaki prefecture, Japan's main chicken-producing region, and found they had been infected with H5N1, the ministry said in a statement. Earlier this month, some 4,000 chickens died from H5N1 in another town in Miyazaki, about 900 kilometers (560 miles) southwest of Tokyo. Authorities began slaughtering the remaining 49,000 chickens at the Hyuga farm on Friday, prefectural official Hisao Takase said. About 21,000 birds had been destroyed by Saturday afternoon, Takase said. Another 50,000 chickens at a neighboring farm will also be killed as a precaution, Takase said. The H5N1 virus has killed or forced the slaughter of millions of birds across Asia since late 2003, and caused the deaths of at least 163 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Japan has confirmed only one human H5N1 infection, and no human deaths. The bird flu virus remains hard for humans to catch, but international experts fear it may mutate into a form that could spread easily among humans and possibly kill millions around the world.

http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert_read.php?id=9573&cat=dis&lang=eng

 

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: Confirmed Outbreak in Poultry - Miyazaki, Japan

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/health/070202/x020221A.html

Japan confirms year's 4th deadly H5N1 bird flu outbreak

Published: Friday, February 2, 2007 | 11:26 PM ET

Canadian Press


TOKYO (AP) - Japanese authorities confirmed the country's fourth outbreak of the virulent H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus Saturday at a poultry farm in the country's south.

About two-dozen chickens were found dead at the farm in Shintomi, southwestern Miyazaki prefecture, last month. The birds had been infected with the H5N1 strain deadly to humans, the Agricultural Ministry said Saturday.

The case marks Japan's fourth H5N1 outbreak incident this year and the third to hit poultry farms in Miyazaki, Japan's largest chicken-producing region.

Authorities have already culled thousands of birds to try and stop the spread of the virus. Officials have begun slaughtering the approximately 93,000 chickens at the Shintomi farm and are sterilizing the site, the ministry said.

The H5N1 virus has killed or prompted the slaughter of millions of birds across Asia since late 2003, and caused the deaths of at least 164 people worldwide, the World Health Organization said.

Japan has confirmed only one human H5N1 infection and no human deaths.

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