Japan reports bird flu outbreak

TOKYO, Jan. 29 (UPI) -- Japan's agriculture ministry announced Monday an outbreak of avian flu had been confirmed at a poultry farm in the prefecture of Okayama. The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper said about 12,000 chickens at a farm in Takahashi were ordered to be gassed and incinerated or buried. Some 950,000 birds at 15 other farms within a 7-mile radius were also checked by agriculture officials Sunday and a travel ban on the fowl and their eggs was imposed, the newspaper said.

Japan has reported seven cases of the H5N1 avian flu and the most recent is the third this year, officials said.

The virus has killed more than 160 people who had contact with infected birds since 2003, most of them in Asia. Epidemiologists fear the virus could mutate and become transmissible between humans and become a pandemic.

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