Commentary / World Oct 12, 2019
When is it OK for health officials to panic?
National Jan 17, 2018
The Environment Ministry said Wednesday that a highly pathogenic, H5N6-type avian influenza virus was detected in a dead northern goshawk found earlier this month at a park in Tokyo's Ota Ward. The news prompted the Tokyo Zoological Park Society, which manages four public zoos, including ...
National Jan 12, 2018
Kagawa culling 92,000 chickens to fend off bird flu outbreak on Shikoku
Authorities in Kagawa Prefecture were culling about 92,000 chickens Friday after the highly pathogenic H5 strain of avian influenza was detected the previous day. The outbreak was confirmed at a poultry farm in Sanuki after chickens tested positive during genetic tests, making it the first ...
National Jan 11, 2018
A highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza killed chickens at a farm in Kagawa Prefecture, in the first outbreak to be confirmed among livestock in Japan this season.
Asia Pacific / Science & Health Oct 20, 2017
New H7N9 bird flu strain in China has pandemic potential, U.S.-Japanese lab studies find
Lab experiments on a new strain of the H7N9 bird flu suggest the virus can pass easily among animals and can cause lethal disease, raising alarms that it has the potential to create a global human pandemic. The H7N9 virus has been circulating in China ...
World / Science & Health Jun 16, 2017
Three mutations could make bird flu a pandemic illness, study says
Scientists have identified three mutations that, if they occurred at the same time in nature, could turn a strain of bird flu now circulating in China into a potential pandemic virus that could spread among people. The flu strain, known as H7N9, now mostly infects ...
National Mar 26, 2017
Bird flu toll in Miyagi, Chiba kept down to 270,000 chickens
The chicken cull sparked by the nation's latest bird flu outbreaks fell short of the originally planned goal of 300,000 Sunday as authorities in Miyagi and Chiba prefectures opted to settle for roughly 209,000 and 62,000 chickens, respectively. The two prefectures north of Tokyo were ...
National Mar 24, 2017
300,000 chickens doomed as bird flu spreads to Miyagi, Chiba
Authorities in Miyagi and Chiba prefectures began culling nearly 300,000 chickens Friday after the highly pathogenic H5 strain of bird flu was detected in dead chickens at local poultry farms. In Japan's latest bird flu outbreak, the Miyagi Prefectural Government plans to cull 220,000 chickens ...
Commentary / World Feb 27, 2017
How China can stop the world's next pandemic
by Adam Minter
The deadliest outbreak of H7N9 bird flu since its discovery in 2013 is sweeping across China.
Asia Pacific / Science & Health Feb 22, 2017
China reports more severe form of bird flu, threat to poultry: WHO
China has detected an evolution in the H7N9 avian flu virus that is capable of causing severe disease in poultry and requires close monitoring, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday. Samples of the virus taken from two infected humans were injected into birds ...
Asia Pacific / Science & Health Feb 19, 2017
Hard to detect, deadly China bird flu virus may be more widespread
Bird flu infection rates on Chinese poultry farms may be far higher than previously thought, because the strain of the deadly virus that has killed more than 100 people this winter is hard to detect in chickens and geese, animal health experts say. Poultry that ...
Asia Pacific / Science & Health Feb 15, 2017
As many as 79 people have died from H7N9 bird flu in China last month, the government said, far surpassing the number of deaths in the same month in recent years and stoking worries about the spread of the virus this winter. Authorities have warned ...