Japan’s Kagawa prefecture to cull 330 000 chickens after bird flu outbreak

Japan’s Kagawa prefecture will cull 330 000 chickens at a farm after the country’s first bird flu outbreak in poultry in more than two years, government officials said on Thursday.

Chickens at a farm in Mitoyo, a city in western Kagawa prefecture, tested positive in a preliminary examination for avian influenza on Thursday, officials from the agriculture ministry and the prefecture said.

The government will conduct further genetic tests to confirm whether the infection was a highly pathogenic strain of H5 bird flu or a lowly pathogenic one, the agriculture ministry official said.

The farm in question had notified the prefectural government of a suspected bird flu outbreak on Wednesday. About 3 800 chickens died in the four days through Wednesday, Kyodo News reported.

Japan’s last outbreak of bird flu occurred in January 2018, when 91 000 chickens at a farm in Sanuki city, also in Kagawa prefecture, were culled due to the H5N6 strain of bird flu, according to the ministry.