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TOKYO: Japan has detected bird flu of the virulent
H5N1 strain for the first time in 13 months, officials said Tuesday,
following tests on a group of swans.
The swans were found eight days
ago on the banks of Lake Towada in Akita prefecture, about 550
kilometers (340 miles) north of Tokyo, the prefectural
administration said in a statement.
Three of the swans were dead and
the other was debilitated.
“Pathological tests have shown
that the influenza virus is of a virulent nature and of the H5N1
type,” the statement said.
The local administration is to
inspect 15 chicken farms within a radius of 30 kilometers (19
miles) of the lake on Wednesday and Thursday, the statement said.
About 42,000 chickens will be subject to the inspections.
“We will see if proper
measures, such as anti-bird nets, are being taken to prevent wild
birds from entering the farms,” said prefectural health official
Takayo Yamaguchi.
In March last year, hawk eagles
were found infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus in the mountains of
Kumamoto on the southern island of Kyushu.
Japan also reported four H5N1
outbreaks in January and February last year, leading authorities
to kill tens of thousands of chickens as a precaution.
The H5N1 strain has killed more
than 230 people worldwide, but none in Japan, since late 2003
through contact with infected birds, with about half of the cases in
Indonesia.
Health experts fear the strain
could mutate into a form easily transmitted from person to person,
leading to a pandemic.
--AFP
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