Confirmed Outbreak in Poultry - Miyazaki, Japan

[yielddude]

(Am I not supposed to report this? was I deleted?)

DJ Bird Flu Suspected At Western Japan Poultry Farm-Kyodo -2



The suspected outbreak has been found at a poultry farm in the town of Kiyodake in western Miyazaki prefecture, prefectural official Toyonari Nukumizu said.

The prefecture has reported the suspected outbreak to the Agriculture Ministry and has begun tests to determine whether an outbreak has actually occurred, Nukumizu said.

The results of the tests - including what strain of the virus is present if bird flu is indeed confirmed to be involved - won't be known until Friday evening, he added.

The disease hit Japan in 2004 for the first time in decades. There has been one confirmed human case involving the virulent H5N1 virus in Japan, but no reported human deaths.

Miyazaki is about 893 kilometers (558 miles) southwest of Tokyo.


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

01-11-07 0942ET

Copyright (c) 2007 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

[sharon sanders]

Yield - I was writing you a PM. I need links. We are used as a news source. If we don't have links, then theoretically the item is a rumour. What you have now is fine. Try to get a link as soon as you can.

Thanks for everything.


S.

[yielddude]

Here is my link, but it is through my Ameritrade streamer, so not sure if you can access. I have not been able to find anything else on this.

http://www.amtddj.inlumen.com/bin/dj...uaebqLqWmdq1od

yield

[HenryN]

Originally Posted by yielddude

Here is my link, but it is through my Ameritrade streamer, so not sure if you can access. I have not been able to find anything else on this.

http://www.amtddj.inlumen.com/bin/dj...uaebqLqWmdq1od

yield

Thanks for the link. An outbreak in Japan was expected. This is a 2003/2004 re-run.

[HenryN]

Commentary at

http://www.recombinomics.com/News/01...apan_2007.html

[aardvark]

here's a Reuters release with a bit more detail:

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/T265463.htm

Suspected bird flu kills farm chickens in S. Japan
11 Jan 2007 15:25:28 GMT
Source: Reuters

TOKYO, Jan 11 (Reuters) - An outbreak of suspected bird flu has killed about 750 chickens on a farm on south Japan's Kyushu island, a farm ministry official in Tokyo said on Thursday.

The farm, which has over 12,000 birds, is located in the small town of Kiyotake in Miyazaki Prefecture, an area devoted mainly to forestry and farming.

The deaths occurred on Wednesday and Thursday, and if bird flu is confirmed, all the chickens on the farm will be destroyed, he said. It was not known if any humans were infected, he added.

The farm will be placed in quarantine and local authorities are urging people to stay away from the area, he said.

[hawkeye]

Japan Farm May Have Bird Flu Outbreak
TOKYO (AP) - Japan's Agriculture Ministry has received reports of a suspected outbreak of bird flu at a poultry farm in western Japan, a news report said late Thursday.

The outbreak is suspected at a poultry farm in the western Miyazaki prefecture (state), Kyodo News agency reported, citing ministry sources.
Miyazaki prefecture authorities are investigating, Kyodo said.

(Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

[aardvark]

The following Japanese language report contains some additional detail not found in the English language reports released thus far:

http://news.tbs.co.jp/part_news/part_news3468013.html

Namely, it states that "initial tests were positive for avian influenza virus" (they note that samples have been sent out for more detailed analyses).

The report also correctly notes that Miyazaki Prefecture is Japan's leading poultry-producing region. (A separate piece in the Asahi Shinbun from earlier today puts the number of "broiler chickens" being raised in Miyazaki at over 18 million birds: http://www.asahi.com/life/update/0111/012.html).

[hawkeye]

what a messy situation. What will Japan do about all the chicken and/or eggs that have been shipped out for processing/consumption?

-

[MHSC]

750 chickens dead in suspected bird flu infection at Miyazaki farm

Friday, January 12, 2007 at 07:02 EST
MIYAZAKI — About 750 chickens have died at a poultry farm in the town of Kiyotake, Miyazaki Prefecture, and highly pathogenic bird flu is suspected as the cause, the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry and the prefectural government said Thursday.

A simple preliminary test confirmed positive results for the bird flu virus, they said, adding the prefectural livestock hygiene service center will isolate the virus before sending it to the National Institute of Animal Health based in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, for a detailed examination.


http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/395832

[yielddude]

(yield - up to 2400 dead chickens now. Also, can this thread be merged with the other started by scott mcpherson?)

2,400 fowl killed by 'bird flu' in Miyazaki
The Yomiuri Shimbun

The agriculture ministry announced Friday that about 2,400 chickens at a farm in Kiyotakecho, Miyazaki Prefecture, had died over the three days since Wednesday due to suspected high-pathogenic avian influenza.

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry believes the deaths were caused by a highly virulent virus because a massive amount of chickens died in such a short period of time.

The ministry has notified all prefectural governments to conduct emergency inspections of all chicken farms.

On Thursday, the ministry had announced that 750 chickens were confirmed dead during the first two days.

According to the ministry, the chicken farm in Kiyotakecho keeps about 12,000 chickens for meat. A veterinarian at the firm detected from samples a positive reaction to a simple avian flu test. The Miyazaki prefectural government sent the samples to the National Institute of Animal Health in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, for further testing. The institute is expected to determine the type of the virus as early as Saturday, government officials said.

If the virus is confirmed as a bird flu virus, the ministry will put together a team to trace the infection route, the ministry said.

The ministry and the prefectural government instructed the farm to quarantine the chickens. It also instructed 17 other poultry farms, holding about 400,000 chickens, within a 10-kilometer radius from the farm not to move their chickens to other locations. The ministry also dispatched two experts to Kiyotakecho.

All 47 prefectures were instructed to investigate whether there has been a sudden jump in the number of dead birds at the nation's 6,200 chicken farms.

Although the avian influenza is virulent, there have been no cases reported in which people were infected with the disease after eating chicken or chicken eggs.

Senior Vice Minister Masayuki Kunii said Friday, "We hope the public responds to this calmly."

In Japan, four cases of highly virulent bird influenza were discovered in Yamaguchi, Oita and Kyoto prefectures in 2004. In June 2005, the bird flu infections found in Ibaraki Prefecture were weaker.

As of February 2006, Miyazaki Prefecture was ranked first in the nation in terms of the number of broiler chickens--18,437,000--and also in terms of the number of farms raising them--394.

The farm regularly ships its chicks, but the dead chickens expired before they were shipped. All the dead birds were raised in the same coops.

(Jan. 13, 2007)

[Dutchy]

Japan confirms bird flu outbreak at poultry farm

Sat 13 Jan 2007 9:44:07 GMT

TOKYO, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Japan said on Saturday it had confirmed a case of bird flu at a poultry farm in southwestern Japan but could not immediately determine if the outbreak was due to a highly pathogenic strain of the virus.

Some 3,800 chickens have died on the farm in Miyazaki prefecture since Wednesday, an outbreak that if confirmed as due to the lethal H5N1 strain, would be the first in Japan since 2004. There were no reports of human infections.

A Miyazaki prefectural official said that tests showed that the chickens were infected with an H5 subtype of the virus, but further testing was needed to determine whether the virus had the N1 component that would make it the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain or the less lethal H5N2.

Local authorities have independently from Saturday started sterilising areas near the poultry farm, another official at the Miyazaki government's livestock section said.

Miyazaki on Japan's southernmost main island of Kyushu is the country's top breeder of chickens, local authorities say. As of Feb 1, 2006, the number of chickens that it was raising for meat was 18.4 million birds.

Between January and March in 2004, Japan had four outbreaks of the H5N1 type strain in poultry, including an outbreak in Kyoto in western Japan in February 2004 that led to the disposal of about 240,000 chickens and 20 million eggs.

A less virulent strain of bird flu, caused by the H5N2 virus, was found in a poultry farm in Ibaraki prefecture in June 2005, and since then, there have been outbreaks of the weaker strain at 41 farms, the last one in January 2006.

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/Cris...-R5-Alertnet-3

[MHSC]

Monday, Jan. 15, 2007

Cull begins at farm hit by bird flu
Compiled from AP, Kyodo
Agricultural authorities culled thousands of chickens Sunday at a poultry farm in Miyazaki Prefecture after test results found a pathogenic strain of the bird flu virus.

Workers in protective gear destroy chickens Sunday at a poultry farm in Kiyotake, Miyazaki Prefecture, that has been hit by bird flu. MIYAZAKI PREFECTURAL GOVERNMENT PHOTO/PHOTO

Some 4,000 chickens died at the farm in the town of Kiyotake starting last week. Officials said late Saturday that the virus belonged to the broad H5 family.
It was not yet clear whether the virus was the H5N1 strain that has killed dozens of people worldwide since 2003. But Miyazaki poultry official Keijiro Tarumizu said test results so far suggested that the virus was virulent enough for all the chickens at the farm to be destroyed.
On Sunday, about 150 workers sent by the prefectural government wearing masks, goggles and white protective suits to prevent secondary infection fatally gassed the farm's roughly 8,000 surviving birds and packed them in sealed bags for incineration on Monday.
After the chickens are removed, the entire farm will be disinfected Tuesday. If there are no signs of infection spreading after three weeks, the prefectural government plans to lift a ban on movements of chickens and eggs from 16 other farms within 10 km of the bird flu-hit facility, according to prefectural officials.
The 16 farms are expected to undergo inspections Wednesday and again a week later.
The H5 subtype is a highly pathogenic form of the virus among poultry but is not necessarily fatal to humans.
Since 2003, the H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus has claimed at least 157 lives worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.
Officials said they are running DNA tests to determine further details of the virus.
Bird flu remains difficult for humans to catch. However, international experts fear it may mutate into a form that could spread easily between humans and potentially kill millions around the world. So far, almost all human deaths from bird flu have been a result of direct contact with infected birds.



http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-b...0070115a3.html

[AlaskaDenise]

http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds...fx3328515.html

Authorities in southwestern Japan begin destroying chickens after bird flu case
01.15.07, 6:30 AM ET

TOKYO (XFN-ASIA) - Authorities in southwestern Japan began incinerating 12,000 dead chickens on a farm after an outbreak of bird flu.

'We will proceed by giving utmost care to safety so as not to cause any fear to residents in the area,' Kazuo Kuroiwa, an agriculture official of Miyazaki prefecture, said of the work which is expected to take until early tomorrow.

On Saturday, the government confirmed the outbreak after 3,900 chickens were found dead at the farm in the prefecture, some 900 kilometers southwest of Tokyo.

Agricultural officials of the prefecture culled the remaining 8,100 chickens at the farm on Sunday, and all 12,000 birds there will be incinerated.

But it is still not clear if the outbreak involved the H5N1 strain, which is potentially deadly to humans.

Another prefectural official, Hisanori Ogura, said earlier today, 'So far, we have not received any reports of a spread of the outbreak. Also, there has been no panic among local residents.'

The officials also put the farm under a massive sanitation program while ordering 11 other poultry farms within a 10-kilometer radius not to move chickens and eggs.

.

[AlaskaDenise]

http://mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp/nation...na013000c.html

Bird flu virus found in Miyazaki confirmed to be highly virulent

The bird flu virus found in Miyazaki Prefecture has been confirmed to be highly virulent, the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry announced Tuesday.

Tests conducted by the semi-governmental National Institute of Animal Health in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture, have proven that the bird flu virus detected in a chicken kept at a poultry farm in the Miyazaki Prefecture town of Kiyotake is Type H5N1, which is highly virulent.

It is the same type as the virus found in Yamaguchi Prefecture and other areas in 2004.

The prefectural government has already banned the transfer of chickens, their eggs and droppings from 16 poultry farms in Kiyotake and the city of Miyazaki following the discovery of bird flu there last weekend. (Mainichi)

.

[HenryN]

Eventually they will acknowledge that this is the Qinghai strain.

[Sharpe]

The obvious has been announced.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/20...nt_5614420.htm
Japan's bird flu virus determined as H5N1 strain
www.chinaview.cn 2007-01-16 21:20:15

Special report: Global fight against bird flu
TOKYO, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The bird flu virus that killed about 3,500 chickens in southwestern Japan last week was determined as the highly contagious and lethal H5N1 strain, Japan's farm ministry said in a statement Tuesday.

According to National Institute of Animal Health which conducted the test, the H5N1 detected in the poultry farm in Miyazaki prefecture was very infectious and virulent.

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry confirmed the cause of the chicken death as avian influenza on Saturday and had the rest several thousands of chickens in the farm culled during the weekend.

In an effort to find the infection routes, the ministry will examine possible genetic similarity of the H5N1 virus detected in this case to those found in other parts of the world, Kyodo News quoted ministry officials as saying

The H5N1 strain is a subtype of the influenza A virus that can cause illness in humans and many other animal species. Since the first case of the virus' human infection confirmed in Hong Kong in 1997, the strain has infected 265 people in 10 countries and led to death of 159 as of last Friday, statistics from the World Health Organization showed.

It is feared that the bird-to-bird disease of avian flu currently spread around the globe could mutate into a virus transmissible between humans and led to a pandemic.

[HenryN]

Originally Posted by Sharpe

The obvious has been announced.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/20...nt_5614420.htm
Japan's bird flu virus determined as H5N1 strain
www.chinaview.cn 2007-01-16 21:20:15

Special report: Global fight against bird flu
TOKYO, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- The bird flu virus that killed about 3,500 chickens in southwestern Japan last week was determined as the highly contagious and lethal H5N1 strain, Japan's farm ministry said in a statement Tuesday.

According to National Institute of Animal Health which conducted the test, the H5N1 detected in the poultry farm in Miyazaki prefecture was very infectious and virulent.

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry confirmed the cause of the chicken death as avian influenza on Saturday and had the rest several thousands of chickens in the farm culled during the weekend.

In an effort to find the infection routes, the ministry will examine possible genetic similarity of the H5N1 virus detected in this case to those found in other parts of the world, Kyodo News quoted ministry officials as saying

The H5N1 strain is a subtype of the influenza A virus that can cause illness in humans and many other animal species. Since the first case of the virus' human infection confirmed in Hong Kong in 1997, the strain has infected 265 people in 10 countries and led to death of 159 as of last Friday, statistics from the World Health Organization showed.

It is feared that the bird-to-bird disease of avian flu currently spread around the globe could mutate into a virus transmissible between humans and led to a pandemic.

The obvious will be announced when they say Qinghai.

[HenryN]

New Outbreak Of Bird Flu In Southern Japan
TOKYO (AP)-A new outbreak of bird flu was found at a poultry farm in southern Japan on Tuesday, raising fears a virulent flu virus that stuck the region earlier this month has spread.
Authorities were checking whether 500 chickens found dead over the last two days died from the H5N1 bird flu virus, which killed 4,000 chickens in the area this month, according to Agriculture Ministry official Yasushi Yamaguchi.
Of 11 birds tested so far, one has tested positive for bird flu - though it wasn’t clear whether the virus was of the virulent kind, Miyazaki Gov. Hideo Higashikokubaru told a press conference late Tuesday.
Authorities have banned the shipment of the farm’s remaining 40,000 live chickens and their eggs, according to Miyazaki official Fumihito Shimbaru. The HN51 virus has ravaged Asia since 2003 and has killed at least 163 people around the world, according to the World Health Organization.
There has been one confirmed human H5N1 infection in Japan, but no reported human deaths. Bird flu remains hard for humans to catch.
But international experts fear it may mutate into a form that could spread easily between humans and potentially kill millions around the world Miyazaki, about 900 kilometers south-west of Tokyo, is Japan’s main chicken-producing region.

http://www.cattlenetwork.com/content...ontentid=99772

[Mamabird]

Originally Posted by niman

The obvious will be announced when they say Qinghai.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070123...n_070123131100

[Niko]

Originally Posted by Mamabird

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070123...n_070123131100

Thanks Mamabird.

Another outbreak of bird flu suspected in Japan

2 hours, 42 minutes ago

Japanese authorities have found a suspected fresh case of bird flu in the same province where an outbreak of the virulent virus was reported earlier this month.
A total of 569 chickens were reported dead as of Tuesday at a poultry farm in the city of Hyuga, said a government official for Miyazaki prefecture on the southern island of Kyushu Tuesday.
"We examined 11 of the dead birds and one of them tested positive for avian influenza," the prefecture's agricultural division said in a statement.
The farm with some 50,000 broilers was in a different location from the last outbreak of the virus that was confirmed in the province on January 13, and was later found to be an especially toxic H5N1 strain.
"We are separating the viruses and will ship samples to a national laboratory for further tests in a few days," Mamoru Tsuneyoshi, an official of the veterinary division, said by telephone.
It is not confirmed yet whether the new case of bird flu involves the virulent H5N1 strain.
In the earlier case, some 3,900 chickens were found dead on a farm, prompting local authorities to slaughter the remaining 8,100 birds to contain the deadly virus.
The Japanese farm ministry announced Tuesday that the virus detected in the earlier outbreak was the same strain as that sampled near Qinghai Lake in western China in 2005.
The same strain of bird flu also has been detected in Mongolia, South Korea and Russia, the ministry said.
The virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed about 160 people worldwide since late 2003 and one of the ways it is transmitted is through contact with infected birds' waste.
Health officials have warned that if the disease mutated into a form easily transmissible by humans, it could cause a pandemic with the potential to kill millions of people.

[yielddude]

DESCRIPTION
Bird flu is suspected in the deaths of 17 chickens at a farm in western Japan, the agriculture ministry said Saturday, just hours after it confirmed an earlier outbreak of bird flu was caused by the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus. Authorities were investigating a possible outbreak at a poultry farm in Takahashi, western Okayama prefecture (state), where 17 birds had died since Friday, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said in a statement. "The number of deaths is small, but we decided it was better to announce the possibility of an outbreak sooner rather than later," ministry official Yasushi Yamaguchi said. The dead birds would be checked at an animal health facility in the state for the bird flu virus, he said. In the meantime, the remaining 12,000 birds at the farm would be quarantined, while neighboring farms asked to keep a watch on their own poultry stocks, the statement said. akahashi is about 560 kilometers (347 miles) west of Tokyo. The news came hours after the ministry reported that tests had confirmed the deadly H5N1 virus killed 3,000 chickens at a poultry farm in southern Japan earlier this week.

A state laboratory had analyzed samples taken from the dead birds from a farm in Hyuga in Miyazaki prefecture, Japan's main chicken-producing region, and found they had been infected with H5N1, the ministry said in a statement. Earlier this month, some 4,000 chickens died from H5N1 in another town in Miyazaki, about 900 kilometers (560 miles) southwest of Tokyo. Authorities began slaughtering the remaining 49,000 chickens at the Hyuga farm on Friday, prefectural official Hisao Takase said. About 21,000 birds had been destroyed by Saturday afternoon, Takase said. Another 50,000 chickens at a neighboring farm will also be killed as a precaution, Takase said. The H5N1 virus has killed or forced the slaughter of millions of birds across Asia since late 2003, and caused the deaths of at least 163 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization. Japan has confirmed only one human H5N1 infection, and no human deaths. The bird flu virus remains hard for humans to catch, but international experts fear it may mutate into a form that could spread easily among humans and possibly kill millions around the world.

http://hisz.rsoe.hu/alertmap/woalert...t=dis&lang=eng

[AlaskaDenise]

http://www.cbc.ca/cp/health/070202/x020221A.html

Japan confirms year's 4th deadly H5N1 bird flu outbreak

Published: Friday, February 2, 2007 | 11:26 PM ET

Canadian Press


TOKYO (AP) - Japanese authorities confirmed the country's fourth outbreak of the virulent H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus Saturday at a poultry farm in the country's south.

About two-dozen chickens were found dead at the farm in Shintomi, southwestern Miyazaki prefecture, last month. The birds had been infected with the H5N1 strain deadly to humans, the Agricultural Ministry said Saturday.

The case marks Japan's fourth H5N1 outbreak incident this year and the third to hit poultry farms in Miyazaki, Japan's largest chicken-producing region.

Authorities have already culled thousands of birds to try and stop the spread of the virus. Officials have begun slaughtering the approximately 93,000 chickens at the Shintomi farm and are sterilizing the site, the ministry said.

The H5N1 virus has killed or prompted the slaughter of millions of birds across Asia since late 2003, and caused the deaths of at least 164 people worldwide, the World Health Organization said.

Japan has confirmed only one human H5N1 infection and no human deaths.

.