Record 10 million birds culled in Japan to contain bird flu

Tokyo, Jan 9 (EFE).- Japan has culled a record 10 million birds at various poultry farms this season to combat bird flu, the government announced on Monday.

The number of birds culled soared to 9.98 million after Ibaraki Prefecture, northeast of Tokyo, said it began slaughtering about 930,000 chickens at a farm in the city of Shirosato, confirming the presence of highly pathogenic avian influenza.

The previous record of culled birds was 9.87 million from November 2020 to March 2021, according to data from the agriculture ministry.

A record 56 bird flu outbreaks have been recorded in 23 of Japan’s 47 prefectures as of Monday.

The first outbreak was detected in October at a poultry farm in Okayama Prefecture (western Japan).

The first outbreak occurred in November in the Kanto region, when the Japanese authorities ordered the slaughter of about a million birds from various farms in Ibaraki prefecture. EFE

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