Some 40,000 chickens to be slaughtered in Japan due to bird flu

Tokyo, Nov 1 (EFE).- Japanese authorities ordered Tuesday the slaughter of some 40,000 chickens on a farm in the west of the country after detecting numerous dead birds whose tests were positive for bird flu.

The birds belonged to a poultry farm located in the city of Kanonji, in Kagawa prefecture (Shikoku island), around which an exclusion area of 3 kilometers has been established, according to details published today by the NHK public broadcaster.

On Monday, about 30 poultry were found dead and 13 of them were analyzed, of which 11 tested positive for the highly contagious H5 strain of the avian influenza virus, so authorities decreed the slaughter of tens of thousands of birds from the facilities.

In addition to limiting movement around the affected farm, authorities in Kagawa have restricted exports within a 10-kilometer radius to prevent the virus from spreading.

Kagawa prefecture was the scene of a series of highly contagious bird flu outbreaks two years ago that led to the culling of some 1.8 million birds.

This is the third outbreak of the animal disease detected in Japan this season, after others that are known in the Okayama prefecture, on the island of Honshu, the largest in the archipelago and located north of Kagawa; and in Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan. EFE

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