Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Tuesday urged relevant ministries to promptly take thorough disease control measures after the H5 bird flu virus was detected in the country's southwest.
According to Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, the premier instructed officials at the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry and other government agencies to closely cooperate in taking preventive measures while collecting information on the outbreak of avian influenza at a poultry farm in Miyazaki Prefecture.
Abe also urged them to provide the public with accurate information on the issue. In addition, the government set up a liaison office in the risk management center of the prime minister's office to handle the outbreak. "The government will take thorough measures to prevent wider infections," Suga told a press conference.
The moves came as Miyazaki Prefectural government on Tuesday culled about 4,000 chickens at the poultry farm in Nobeoka city, some 900 kilometers southwest of Tokyo, after officials found the toxic strain of avian flu in three sample chickens. The authorities conducted genetic analysis following the death of 29 chickens at the farm on Sunday and Monday.
To prevent any infection from spreading, the prefectural government also imposed a ban on movements of 8,300 birds and eggs within a radius of 3 kilometers from the affected farm, as well as shipments of 6,500 birds and eggs within a 10-kilometer radius.
Miyazaki is Japan's biggest broiler chicken-producing prefecture. It was the first bird flu case confirmed in Japan since April, when 3,900 chickens were found dead on a farm. Bird flu, or Avian influenza, is a contagious disease of animal origin caused by viruses that normally infect only birds.