Japan confirms bird flu strain is H5N1
January 16, 2007 by Grace Ibay
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
The big news on Tuesday: Japan has the H5N1.
The bird flu outbreak that killed 4000 chickens in a poultry farm last weekend was caused by the virulent strain H5N1, confirmed a farm ministry official. Where this outbreak originated is still a mystery.
Authorities killed and began incinerating all the remaining chickens in that farm. Quarantine and restrictions were further placed for farms within a 10 km radius to prevent spread of the dreaded virus. The farm ministry also plans to check the other poultry farms in the prefecture, as well as across the nation.
“The rule is to visit each farm whenever possible … but when this cannot be done then the checks may be conducted by making phone calls,” a ministry official said.
At this point, I think it would more cost effective to use maximum resources for physical and thorough checks to prevent H5N1 from spreading across Japan than deal with resulting outbreaks because a “phone call” was thought sufficient.
[Source: ABCNews: Japan says bird flu outbreak is from deadly H5N1]
Tags: Japan, H5N1, outbreak, poultry, chicken, prefecture, bird flu, flu, avian influenza
