Japan To Cull Some 250,000 Chickens Over New Bird Flu Outbreak - Reports

Nearly 250,000 chickens will be culled in the Japanese prefecture of Chiba near Tokyo over a new outbreak of the highly pathogenic bird flu, Japanese media reported on Monday

TOKYO (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 08th February, 2021) Nearly 250,000 chickens will be culled in the Japanese prefecture of Chiba near Tokyo over a new outbreak of the highly pathogenic bird flu, Japanese media reported on Monday.

According to the Kyodo news agency, the eighth outbreak of bird flu was detected in the prefecture on Monday morning.

Chiba Governor Kensaku Morita has called the rate at which the bird flu was spreading in the prefecture this winter "unprecedented." According to preliminary data, up to 30 percent of the total population of chickens raised in Chiba has been culled.

The latest outbreak was detected on a farm in the city of Sosa. A quarantine zone was established within a 3-kilometer (1.9 miles) radius from the farm and a ban on the export of eggs and poultry products was introduced within the same range.

In January, the national Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said that the outbreak of bird flu, which started in November, has beat all records in terms of the number of chickens culled in one season. More than seven million birds were exterminated. Seventeen out of Japan's 47 prefectures were affected by the bird flu.