Bird flu: Japan bans British poultry

Japan has suspended imports of poultry from Britain, including meat and related products, because of an outbreak of bird flu here, the Agriculture Ministry said.

The temporary import ban – aimed at preventing the spread of bird flu to domestic fowl – took effect yesterday, the ministry said in a statement released later in the day.

The announcement followed an outbreak at a poultry farm in eastern England of the H7N3 strain of bird flu – less virulent than the H5N1 virus that has ravaged poultry stocks elsewhere. According to the World Health Organisation, H5N1 has killed at least 113 people worldwide.

Bird flu hit Japan two years ago for the first time in decades, but there have been no confirmed H5N1 infections among people.

Several outbreaks of the less virulent H5N2 strain at poultry farms near Tokyo last year led to culling of hundreds of thousands of birds.

In 2005, Japan imported merely 0.2 ton of chicken and other poultry meat and 374,964 birds, the ministry said.