Some 310,000 chickens and 16,500 ducks are set to be killed off in north Japan, authorities said on Tuesday.
The officials in the Niigata prefecture said they had found 40 chickens dead at a farm in the village of Sekikawa, prompting them to destroy all the birds at the farm. Also, several ducks in the Aomori prefecture tested positive for a H5 bird strain.
In both locations, the strain of the virus was highly pathogenic, according to Japanese media. Japanese poultry farms had been free of avian influenza for two years.
The virus is also spreading through Europe, with France announcing they detected it in wild ducks on Monday. On Saturday, Dutch authorities killed about 190,000 ducks at six farms over an avian flu outbreak. Outbreaks have also been reported in Switzerland, Romania, and Germany in recent weeks.
Health authorities advise farmers from humid regions to keep their poultry indoors or apply safety nets to prevent contact with wild birds, that can carry the virus and transmit it through feathers or feces. The World Organization for Animal Health believes that more outbreaks are likely in Europe as wild birds migrate to the south, according to the Reuters news agency.
France, the largest poultry producer in Europe, is still reeling for a severe bird flu outbreak earlier this year.
The H5N8 strain of bird flu is spreading in Europe, and is highly contagious among birds. Thousands of birds have been culled.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/F. KästleA laboratory worker in North Rhine-Westphalia tests a goose suspected of having bird flu. The H5N8 strain of the virus is highly contagious among poultry. According to the WHO, transmission to humans cannot be ruled out, "although the likelihood is low, based on the limited information available to date." The current outbreak was first detected in Germany on November 8.
A case of H5-type bird flu was detected at a poultry farm along this road in Cloppenburg county, Lower Saxony on November 23, leading to the culling of 16,000 turkeys. Authorities imposed a prohibited zone around the farm. The region is one of Europe's largest for poultry production, with millions of animals farmed there.
The current spread of the H5N8 infection was first discovered on the Russian-Mongolian border in June. Cases of H5N8 have also been reported in several other European countries including Hungary, Austria, the Netherlands and Denmark. Outbreaks were also reported in Israel and Iran. As of November 24, the virus had been reported in 12 German states.
In several German regions authorities have instructed farmers to keep their birds indoors in an effort to halt the spread. That's easier said than done for some - the breeder of these ostriches in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is hoping for an exemption.
While there's no evidence that mammals are being infected by H5N8, some German authorities have marked off areas where domestic animals are not allowed to roam. That's to prevent the pathogen spreading by infected dung sticking to an animal's fur or paw. Experts also think the disease could be spread among birds by predators ripping open infected wildfowl.
An official scours the shores of Lake Constance on Germany's southern border for dead birds on November 14. The president of Germany's Friedrich Löffler institute for animal health, Thomas Mettenleiter, said the infection was jumping rapidly from wild to domestic fowl. "We are currently seeing an extremely dynamic process with a strong tendency to spread," he said.
dj/rc (dpa, Reuters)
