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TOKYO: Japan on Wednesday announced new measures to combat bird flu after four cases in the past month, as another recent outbreak was confirmed to be the virulent H5N1 strain of the virus.
The farm ministry said it had formed an emergency task force to strengthen prevention measures and would back sending troops to help anti-flu efforts in worst-hit southwestern Miyazaki prefecture.
"The farm ministry would support Miyazaki prefecture if it calls for the deployment of the Self-Defence Forces," Farm Minister Toshikatsu Matsuoka said, referring to officially pacifist Japan's military.
Matsuoka will head the emergency task force which includes experts in poultry disease. The task force will discuss potential new measures against bird flu.
"This is a move by the central government to step up counter-measures against bird flu following the latest case," a farm ministry official said.
In the latest suspected outbreak reported on Tuesday, a total of 23 birds were found dead at a poultry farm in the town of Shintomicho in Miyazaki prefecture.
Two cases of the virulent H5N1 strain were detected earlier in January in Miyazaki prefecture and a third case of bird flu was reported on Monday in western Okayama prefecture.
A laboratory confirmed on Wednesday that the case in Okayama prefecture was also H5N1, another farm ministry official said. Test results are still awaited over the latest case in Miyazaki.
H5N1 has killed around 160 people across the world since late 2003 and can be transmitted through contact with infected birds' waste.
Health officials have warned that if the disease mutated into a form easily transmissible by humans, it could cause a pandemic with the potential to kill millions of people.
Japan confirmed an outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in January 2004. Since then, the nation has seen several further outbreaks of the H5N1 strain as well as the H5N2 virus. - AFP/so
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