Bird flu outbreaks in Japan

The Japanese agriculture ministry on Thursday confirmed that the virus detected in the second case in a month of birds' mass death in Miyazaki Prefecture is the virulent H5 strain of the bird flu virus.
The National Institute of Animal Health in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture will further analyze the virus sample to determine if it was the lethal H5N1 type, Kyodo News reported.
About 1,300 birds died from Monday to Wednesday at a farm in the city of Hyuga. This is the second bird flu case in a month in Ibaraki prefecture and the sixth in Japan since 2004.
Earlier this month at a farm in the town of Kiyotake, 60 kilometers away from Hyuga 3,500 birds were killed by the H5N1 strain and all of the 12,000 birds incinerated.
Bird flu infections hit dozens of farms in central Japan's Ibaraki prefecture in 2005 and 2006, resulting in the destruction of at least 5.8 million poultry.