To fight against the contagion of avian flu, Japan will slaughter another 230,000 new poultry.
Nearly 230,000 new chickens will be killed on a farm in Japan, after the confirmation of an epidemic of bird flu, say the authorities. A very virulent wave of H5 avian flu was detected at a farm in Joetsu City (north of Honshu) after the death of a hundred chickens between Tuesday and Wednesday, the Niigata prefecture confirmed to the news agency Belgian Belga.
For now, the local government has restricted the movement of poultry and eggs near the farm. And last Tuesday, the Japanese authorities began destroying around 310,000 chickens on a farm in Sekikawa Village, 140 kilometers northeast of Joetsu.
Finally, in Aomori prefecture, more than 18,000 ducks were slaughtered on a farm where tests also confirmed the presence of the H5 bird flu virus.
These new infections occur as the Christmas holidays approach, when the Japanese consume a lot of chicken meat and where foie gras is enjoyed in some restaurants. “There has been no case in Japan identified so far of transmission to humans through the consumption of poultry meat or eggs,” said the Ministry of Agriculture.
South Korea on Wednesday revealed the existence of new cases of bird flu, an epidemic that has led to the preventive slaughter of two million poultry. The first cases of the H5N6 virus were confirmed on November 18 at a farm in central South Korea. The epidemic has spread to other farms and the authorities now count 46 cases.
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Agriculture, however, told Agence France Presse (AFP) that no case of human infection with the H5N6 virus had been identified in South Korea. This strain of the virus killed six people in China between 2014 and April 2016, according to Korean authorities. The current cases of avian influenza in Europe are linked to the H5N8 strain.
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