Japan orders chicken cull on third bird flu outbreak in less than a week

CHONGQING, CHINA - FEBRUARY 2: (CHINA OUT) A rooster finds food at a farm February 2, 2007 in Chongqing Municipality, China. Veterinary workers in China are monitoring domestic animals after Indonesia reported that the avian influenza had been detected in a large number of cats. The discovery has heightened concerns about the virus that experts had thought was only infecting chickens, ducks and other fowl, according to state media. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images) (2007 China Photos)

TOKYO – Japan has started culling another 230,000 chickens after the discovery of a highly contagious form of bird flu on a farm in the north of the country, the local government said.

The latest bird flu outbreak in Joetsu City in Niigata prefecture marks the second instance in the prefecture and the third in Japan in less than a week.

Authorities have been culling more than 300,000 chickens and ducks this week after the discovery of the first H5 bird flu in nearly two years.

That comes as South Korea said on Tuesday it would cull 3 percent of its total poultry population to curb an outbreak of the H5N6 variety of bird flu that has hit a number of farms across the nation.