Japan To Cull Record 15Mln Chickens This Season Due To Bird Flu - Agriculture Ministry

(@FahadShabbir)

Japan to Cull Record 15Mln Chickens This Season Due to Bird Flu - Agriculture Ministry

TOKYO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 02nd March, 2023) A record number of chickens, over 15 million, will be culled in Japan this season due to the spread of bird flu, the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries announced on Thursday.

"This season, when the first case was recorded on October 28, as of 9 a.m. local time on March 2 (00:00 GMT), 77 cases were detected in 25 prefectures. The total number of chickens that will be culled is 15.02 million," the ministry said in a statement.

The culling of about 243,000 chickens was already underway and local authorities introduced a quarantine on birds transportation within a 3-kilometer (1.8 miles) radius, according to the statement.

Experts explain the outbreak by the fact that migrating birds have returned earlier than usual this year, which resulted in a rapid spread of infections across regions. Bird flu has caused the price of chicken eggs � already high amid inflation and soaring prices for food products � to spike to its 29-year peak.

Bird flu is a highly contagious virus that can cause influenza in birds and result in their deaths. In a period from the fall 2020 to spring 2021, Japan suffered the largest avian influenza outbreak in the country's history. The virus affected more than a third of the nation's prefectures, with about 10 million chickens culled in more than 50 farms.