Japan Restricts Chicken Shipments After Bird Flu Outbreak

 

Bloomberg.com | April 13, 2014 | by Aya Takada

Japan has restricted shipments of almost 400,000 chickens in Kumamoto prefecture after the nation’s first outbreak of bird flu in three years, according to the Agriculture Ministry.

Local authorities will today finish culling about 112,000 chickens in two farms in the prefecture on the southern island of Kyushu, Yoshihiro Kawada at the ministry’s animal health division said by phone from Tokyo.



Japan started culling yesterday following the discovery of the H-5 avian influenza virus that killed about 1,100 chickens in a farm in Taragi town in the prefecture. The other one in a nearby village is owned by the same operator of the infected farm, Kawada said.

In the previous outbreak spanning from November 2010 through March 2011, the Japanese government destroyed 1.83 million chickens in 24 farms in 9 prefectures, according to the ministry. The country currently grows a total of 260 million chickens to produce eggs and meat.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-14/japan-restricts-chicken-shipments-after-bird-flu-outbreak.html