Japan's Hokkaido prefecture began culling on Saturday some 210,000 chicken at a poultry farm where highly pathogenic bird flu strain had been detected.

This is the first time that bird flu has been detected in poultry in the northernmost prefecture of Japan.

Some 30 chicken at the farm in the town of Shimizu were found dead Friday, and 7 of them were found positive for bird flu in a preliminary test. Further tests confirmed the presence of a highly contagious H5 strain.

Local government has ordered all the 210, 000 chicken kept at the farm to be culled and farms within 10 kilometers to stop transporting poultry.

Seven poultry farms are keeping about 192,000 chicken within a 10-kilometer radius of the farm in question.

Over 60 bird flu cases have been reported around Japan this winter, the most in history, with highly pathogenic bird flu strain detected in wild birds, poultry as well as birds kept in zoos.

A total of about 570,000 chicken have been culled at poultry farms in the prefectures of Aomori and Niigata in Japan since November due to the spreading of bird flu virus.

source: Xinhua