Virus in Ongoing Bird Flu Epidemic Causes Slower Deaths: Study

Tokyo, Dec. 14 (Jiji Press)--A virus in the ongoing avian influenza epidemic in western Japan takes longer to kill chickens than a virus in a past epidemic did, a study by a government-backed institute suggested Monday.

The National Agriculture and Food Research Organization isolated a virus from chickens at a farm in Kagawa Prefecture where the country’s first bird flu case since January 2018 was detected on Nov. 5 this year.

The virus was injected into five chickens, one of which died in four days, followed by the other four two days later, according to the institute.

In a past experiment, all chickens died within two days after being injected with a virus from the 2004 outbreak in Yamaguchi Prefecture.

The ongoing epidemic has hit a total of 10 prefectures.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]