On Thursday, media reported that a large number of birds had died at two farms in Kagawa. Further tests confirmed that they had been infected with a bird flu, as Japanese authorities discovered a sixth and seventh outbreak in just the last several weeks.
According to the Kyodo news agency, 350,000 chickens would be culled at one farm and 495,000 at another.
Not transmissible to humans, the highly pathogenic H5 flu was first detected at a bird farm near Kagawa’s city of Mitoyo, where nearly 4,000 chickens died between November 1 and 4. On November 13, Russia imposed restrictions on poultry imports from Japan over the bird flu outbreaks.