A SUSPECTED outbreak of bird flu has been found at a farm in eastern Japan, a local government official has said.
An official with the Ibaraki prefecture government said local officials had asked the National Institute for Animal Health for detailed testing to confirm the outbreak. "We are still consulting with experts whether this is really a case of bird flu. We will announce more information when we find out," he said, without elaborating.
A media report said some 430 chickens died between March and May at a poultry farm in Ibaraki that keeps 25,000 birds.
The farm asked a private institute to conduct tests and it detected the bird flu virus, Kyodo News said.
The farm, however, is no longer reporting large numbers of deaths among chickens and recent inspections of the farm and neighbouring ones did not detect any abnormality, Kyodo said.
The Ibaraki official declined to confirm or deny the report.
Japan last year found several cases of bird flu, the first time since 1925.
A total of 54 people have died from the H5N1 bird flu virus - 38 Vietnamese, 12 Thais and four Cambodians - since the latest epidemic began in 2003.
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