TOYKO -- Japan's latest outbreak of avian influenza was caused by a virus from Guatemala, a less dangerous strain than the one that has ravaged Asia, the Agriculture Ministry said Thursday, June 30.
The H5N2 strain found in the outbreak at a farm in Mitsukaido City northeast of Tokyo matched the virus found in chickens in Guatemala, ministry official Tomomi Sugiura said.
"The findings show that the virus is very close to one originating in Central America and has somehow reached Japan," Sugiura said. "But we don't know how it got here."
Government experts will continue investigating the virus, he said.
Japanese authorities have culled all of the 25,000 birds at the farm in Mitsukaido City where the outbreak was detected.
They planned to kill 94,000 others at the five nearby farms, where some chickens had developed antibodies to the virus.
Meanwhile, the ministry on Thursday lifted a ban on shipping eggs from 10 farms in the affected area after confirming their birds were not infected. All their chickens are raised as egg laying birds, not for meat.
The H5N2 strain of bird flu has not been known to infect humans, according to the ministry. The more dangerous H5N1 strain has crossed over to humans and killed a total of 55 people in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia since late 2003.
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