No Matter Where I Am In the World.....

When I lived in London, it was during the Mad Cow era was infecting the beef, now here I am in Japan and the bird flu is attacking the chickens.
Signs of bird flu again detected in Japanese poultry, report says
Authorities have detected signs of bird flu at seven additional poultry farms near a previously affected ranch outside Tokyo, a news report said Tuesday.
Antibody tests showed the chickens may be infected with a virus from the H5 family, and officials have restricted movement of fowl and eggs in the affected area, in Ibaraki Prefecture just northeast of Tokyo, Kyodo News Agency said.
Signs of the antibodies means the chickens were infected in the past but had survived.
Local authorities are still deciding whether to cull the birds.
Japan's Agriculture Ministry identified a previous outbreak of bird flu in Ibaraki last week amid reports that 260,000 chickens would be culled. The strain involved is less virulent that the H5N1 variety that has ravaged poultry in Southeast Asia since 2003 and killed more than 60 people in Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia.
Bird flu hit Japan last year for the first time in decades, killing or prompting the extermination of more than 300,000 chickens. Japan also confirmed a human case of bird flu in December, but no deaths have been reported.
An outbreak in June forced the culling of about 94,000 birds at another farm outside Tokyo. It was caused by the H5N2 bird flu strain, a variety not known to infect humans. (AP)
August 30, 2005