Japan starts chicken cull after confirming bird flu outbreak

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.