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Japan starts chicken cull after confirming bird flu outbreak
Japan`s western Kagawa prefecture has begun a cull of 91,000 chickens after the discovery of a highly contagious form of bird flu on a farm, the local government said.
TOKYO: Japan's western Kagawa prefecture has begun a cull of 91,000 chickens after the discovery of a highly contagious form of bird flu on a farm, the local government said.
The confirmation of the outbreak, which was reported earlier in the week, marked the country`s first cases of bird flu in poultry this winter.
The local government and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said late Thursday that chickens at a farm in the area of Sanuki city in Kagawa had been confirmed testing positive for a highly pathogenic avian influenza.
Japan`s last outbreak of bird flu occurred in March. Between November 2016 and March 2017, a total of 1.67 million chickens were culled due to the H5N6 strain of bird flu, according to the ministry.