Authorities in Miyazaki prefecture in southwestern Japan have started culling around 168,000 chickens after a highly pathogenic strain of bird flu virus was detected at a farm in the region.
Following the discovery of around 130 dead birds on Tuesday at a farm in the prefecture, local authorities conducted genetic testing and confirmed the presence of the H5 virus strain in four of them, according to media reports.
Movement of birds and eggs within a 10 km radius of the affected area has been banned, a move that will impact around 140 farms, reported NHK news.
This is the second mass cull in a month in Miyazaki; in December, around 120,000 poultry birds were eliminated in the region, home to the country's highest number of chickens that totalled 27.4 million till February 2016.
Since November last year, the highly-pathogenic H5 strain has also been detected in poultry farms in Hokkaido and Aomori (north), Niigata (northwest), and Kumamoto and Miyazaki (southwest), and the number of birds that has since then been culled has already exceeded a million.
This is the first time the virus has resurfaced in Japan after late 2014, and is the worst outbreak since 2011, when some 700,000 birds were culled in Miyazaki farms.
The World Health Organisation says it's on maximum alert in the wake of the rapid spread of bird flu outbreaks, with nearly 40 countries having reported cases since September.
