Japan confirms third bird flu outbreak in January

TOKYO, Jan 29 (Reuters) Japan confirmed a fresh outbreak of bird flu at a poultry farm in the western prefecture of Okayama, the agriculture ministry said in a statement today, the third such case in the country this month.

The ministry said tests showed the presence of H5 subtype influenza among chickens at the farm in the city of Takahashi, where 39 birds out of 12,000 have died since Friday.

Further tests will be carried out to confirm whether the virus was the H5N1 strain, the ministry added.

The H5N1 virus has killed at least 164 people worldwide since 2003, most of them in Asia, and over 200 million birds have died from it or have been culled to prevent its spread.

There have been no reported cases of human infection from the virus in Japan.

The agriculture ministry said it had ordered all poultry at the farm to be killed and the site to be disinfected. Movement of people and goods within a 10 km (6 mile) radius of the farm was to be restricted, it added.

Earlier this month, Japan had two cases of an H5N1 outbreak among poultry in the southwestern prefecture of Miyazaki, the country's biggest poultry producing region.

There had been no H5N1 cases in the country for three years.

In 2004, Japan had four H5N1 poultry outbreaks between January and March, including one in Kyoto in western Japan in which 240,000 chickens were culled and 20 million eggs destroyed.

Last week, authorities in Hong Kong confirmed a third case of H5N1 virus found in dead birds, while six people have died of bird flu in Indonesia since January 1.

Reuters DH VP0650