Culling of chickens begins at Shimane farm hit by suspected bird flu

+

MATSUE, Japan, Nov. 30 Kyodo -
The Shimane prefectural government began destroying about 23,000 chickens on
Tuesday at a poultry farm in the prefecture suspected of having Japan's first
bird flu case since early last year.
By the evening, the prefecture had killed 3,300 chickens, according to the
western prefecture on the coast of the Sea of Japan.
Facing a possible outbreak of avian flu in western Japan, Prime Minister Naoto
Kan vowed in Tokyo to contain the spread of the virus and ordered officials to
do everything in their power for ''domestic crisis management.''
It is the first time that culling has begun before the type of avian flu virus
has been identified, according to the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries
Ministry.
The killed chickens will be burnt and the farm in the city of Yasugi will be
cleaned and disinfected afterward. The entire operation is expected to take
five to six days, the prefectural government said.
On Monday, five chickens were found dead at the farm and they tested positive
for bird flu in preliminary tests. They may have been infected with the highly
virulent H5 strain of avian flu virus.
The sample of the virus will be sent to the National Institute of Animal Health
in Ibaraki Prefecture, eastern Japan, for a detailed analysis, and the
prefectural government will likely have the result on Wednesday night.
If the infection is confirmed, it will be the first since February 2009 when a
quail farm in Toyohashi, Aichi Prefecture, was found to be infected by another
strain of avian flu virus.
The farm suspected of having avian flu had an antibody test on Nov. 16, but the
chickens tested negative in a checkup by a local livestock hygiene center. The
prefecture thus believes that they should have been infected with the virus
within the two weeks through Monday.
The Shimane prefectural government conducted visual inspections and questioning
at 47 poultry farms on Tuesday, but no abnormal chickens were found, while
neighboring Tottori Prefecture also carried out similar inspections but
discovered no abnormalities at 88 farms.
Tottori started disinfecting vehicles on main roads near the affected farm in
the city, which borders the prefecture.
If an avian flu infection is confirmed, the movement of chickens and eggs will
be restricted within a 10-kilometer radius of the affected farm.
On the heels of the suspected outbreak, the Environment Ministry decided
Tuesday to postpone its planned transfer of four Japanese crested ibises to a
breeding center in the prefecture's city of Izumo from the Sado Japanese
Crested Ibis Conservation Center in Niigata Prefecture.
The ibises were scheduled to leave Sado on Thursday and arrive in Izumo the
following day. The transfer was aimed at preventing the ibises, which are
designated as a protected species in Japan, from being killed from bird flu and
other infectious viruses.
The central government has set up a task force to deal with the possible outbreak.
==Kyodo
2010-12-01 00:18:03