# 5107
The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries (MAFF) in Japan has officially submitted an immediate notification report on the poultry farm outbreak of HPAI H5 widely reported earlier this week.
I’ve cobbled together some of the highlights below. You can view the full report at this link.
In excess of 21,000 birds have been culled and are in the process of being incinerated and buried.
The narrative provided at the bottom of the report gives us a bit of the timeline involved.
An outbreak of HPAI was confirmed on 2 December 2010 in Shimane prefecture. The previous outbreak of HPAI in Japan started in April 2008. The event has been contained in the affected farm by control measures including stamping-out and movement restrictions.
On 29 November 2010, a local veterinary officer visited the farm immediately after notification from the owner. Although no remarkable increase of the mortality was recognized, the local veterinary service centre in the prefecture confirmed that 3 out of 5 samples taken from dead birds were influenza A virus positive by antigen-capture kits. On the same day, the centre confirmed the subtype was H5 by RT-PCR test.
On 1 December 2010, the National Institute of Animal Health affirmed an isolate was due to influenza A virus subtype H5 by HI test.
On 2 December 2010, the institute confirmed the cases as highly pathogenic avian influenza because the isolate caused 75 % mortality in 4-week-old chickens infected intravenously, and the amino acid sequence of the connecting peptide of the haemagglutinin was the same as that observed for the highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses isolated from faeces of wild ducks in Hokkaido in October 2008.
Killing of the susceptible animals started on 30 November 2010 and was completed on 2 December 2010. Incineration of the carcasses and disinfection of the farm are continuing.
A movement restriction zone was established within 10 km around the affected farm on 29 November 2010. In addition, the traffic around the affected farm was restricted. There are 4 poultry farms in addition to the affected farm in the zone. They are also under surveillance. A total of 13 disinfection stations were established in and around the restriction zone.
Source of the outbreak(s) or origin of infection
• Unknown or inconclusive
A hat tip to IronOreHopper (@giubothris)for tweeting the link to this OIE report.
