An outbreak of bird flu at a poultry farm in southwestern Japan was caused by the H5N1 strain, farm ministry officials said today, confirming the second such case in Japan this month.
There have been no reported cases of human infection.
Local officials were in the process of slaughtering all 50,000 birds on the farm after 3,200 of them died of the disease. Another 50,000 at an adjacent farm will also be slaughtered as a precautionary measure, a local official said.
Earlier tests had shown chickens on the farm in Miyazaki prefecture were infected with an H5 subtype of bird flu virus, but further testing had been needed to determine whether it was the H5N1 strain.
The World Health Organization says the H5N1 virus has infected 269 people and killed 163 of them worldwide since 2003. Tens of millions of birds have been killed by the disease or culled to stop it spreading.
Earlier this month, Japan suffered its first outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in poultry in more than three years, also in Miyazaki, which is the country's biggest poultry producing region.
Cases of the disease have flared up across Asia in recent weeks, as in previous winters, killing six people this month in Indonesia and infecting poultry across parts of southern Vietnam.
A 14-year-old boy in Azerbaijan was sent to hospital as a suspected case this week.
The first outbreak of bird flu in the European Union this year was confirmed on Wednesday after the H5N1 strain was detected in geese in Hungary.