Fergie's Tech Blog

H5N1 News: Japan to Kill 82,000 More Chickens

An AP newswire article by Chisaki Watanabi, via SFGate.com, reports that:

Japanese officials planned Monday to slaughter 82,000 more chickens after signs of bird flu were detected at a farm northeast of Tokyo, and authorities in Thailand said a woman was diagnosed with the disease after cleaning out a chicken coop.

Pacific rim disaster experts also met in Australia to discuss how to respond to a possible human flu pandemic, as Hong Kong said it would shut farms and kill all poultry in the city if the virus is found on more than one farm.

A Hong Kong newspaper, meanwhile, said Swiss drug company Roche Holding AG was in talks with Chinese officials about jointly producing its anti-viral medication Tamiflu, considered one of the few drugs likely to be effective in a global epidemic.

The latest Japanese outbreak occurred at a farm in Ibaraki, just northeast of Tokyo, officials said. The farm was inside a quarantined area where authorities had already found signs of the disease and culled around 1.5 million birds, prefectural livestock farming chief Taro Imai said.

posted by Fergie @ 10/31/2005 08:49:00 AM