MIYAZAKI/KAGOSHIMA (Kyodo) -- Chickens at a poultry farm in Izumi, Kagoshima Prefecture, tested positive for bird flu in an abbreviated examination, the prefectural government said Tuesday, following outbreaks of a highly lethal strain of avian influenza in Miyazaki Prefecture.
The Kagoshima farm raises some 8,600 chickens to collect eggs. There are around 160 poultry farms within a 10-kilometer radius from the farm in question, with some 5.25 million birds bred.
Local authorities plan to examine the chickens more closely.
The Environment Ministry, meanwhile, began research Tuesday to see if infections with the highly lethal strain have spread in Miyazaki, ministry officials said.
Researchers started collecting droppings of wild birds in areas within 10-kilometer radiuses from two poultry farms in the city of Miyazaki and the town of Shintomi where the outbreaks of bird flu have been confirmed since last week.
Three researchers from the Japan Wildlife Research Center began the survey at a location along the Hitotsuse River that stretches between Miyazaki and Shintomi on behalf of the ministry.
"We will check if infections might have spread in view of the possibility that migratory birds may have acted as intermediaries in transmitting the virus" to chicks at the farms, said Masahide Kubota, one of the researchers.
Such possibility was underlined Tuesday when the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said the birds from Miyazaki were infected with the H5N1 virus, whose gene sequence is at least 99 percent identical to viruses detected from chickens in Shimane Prefecture and from mute swans in Toyama Prefecture last year.
The virus from Miyazaki is also similar to the one discovered in Kagoshima Prefecture last month, the ministry added.
The examination by the Environment Ministry was prompted by successive detections of the highly virulent strain in the two municipalities.
The researchers will collect wild bird droppings at six to seven locations through Wednesday, and it will take two to three weeks before the laboratory results are available, the ministry officials said.
The ministry raised the alert level Monday to its highest degree of 3 to strengthen surveillance of wild birds inhabiting the area within 10-km radiuses from the two farms.
Farm minister Michihiko Kano said the government plans to complete a cull of some 410,000 chickens at the Shintomi poultry farm by Thursday.
"We are proceeding with it (the cull) by consulting with the prefectural government," he said at a press conference.
Some 150 Ground Self-Defense Force personnel joined the governments' efforts to cull the 410,000 chickens at the Shintomi poultry farm.
At the poultry farm in the city of Miyazaki, the farm ministry has found there were several openings and holes in the bird net, and Kano said epidemic prevention efforts there were not sufficient.
(Mainichi Japan) January 25, 2011
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