Source: Chris Scott, MEATINGPLACE, 4/15/14

Japan ordered 112,000 birds culled after officials confirmed the H5N1 strain of bird influenza had been found at a poultry farm in the south, as chicken vendors in Hong Kong launched a boycott of live poultry from Japan’s Kumamoto Prefecture.

Another 56,000 birds were slaughtered at a separate farm run by the same owner in what has been described as the first confirmed outbreak of bird flu in Japan in three years.

Japan’s agriculture minister also banned transporting chickens from two affected farms in Kumamoto and plans to send teams of experts to identify the cause of the latest outbreak, according to online reports from Codewit World News and Press Trust of India.

Meanwhile, the Center for Food Safety in Hong Kong and the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department has banned the import of poultry and poultry products from the prefecture in the wake of the bird flu discovery, according to an online report.

The World Health Organization says Hong Kong is one of the non-affected areas because the infection noted in the last six months was from a foreign source, although several chicken vendors in Hong Kong reportedly launched a week-long boycott of live poultry sales to protest rising costs of local birds.

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