- Authorities detected numerous dead birds on a farm whose tests came back positive.

File image of health workers collecting blood samples from chickens on a farm in Japan after detecting a strain of bird flu.

40,000 chickens ordered to be slaughtered in Japan due to bird flu

Japanese authorities on Tuesday ordered the slaughter of some 40,000 chickens on a farm in the western archipelago after detecting numerous dead birds the day before whose tests came back positive for bird flu.

The birds belonged to a poultry farm located in the city of Kanonji, in Kagawa prefecture (Shikoku island), around which an exclusion area of ​​three kilometers around has been established, according to details published by the chain. public NHK.

This Monday, around thirty poultry were found dead and 13 of them were analyzed, of which 11 tested positive for the highly contagious H5 strain of the avian flu virus, for which the authorities decreed the slaughter of tens of thousands of birds from the facilities.

In addition to limiting movement around the affected farm, authorities in Kagawa have restricted exports within a 10-kilometer radius to prevent the virus from spreading.

Kagawa prefecture was the scene of a series of highly contagious bird flu outbreaks two years ago that led to the culling of some 1.8 million birds.

This is the third outbreak of the animal disease detected in Japan this season, after others that are known in the Okayama prefecture, on the island of Honshu, the largest in the archipelago and located north of Kagawa; and in Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan.

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