Japan Minster of Agricultre - Nomura Tedsuro

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has confirmed twenty-eight cases of highly pathogenic avian influenza across sixteen prefectures in Japan requiring depopulation of four million chickens.  This situation is reminiscent of the November 2020 - March 2021 epornitic with a total of 52 cases in eighteen prefectures requiring depletion of 9.9 million chickens. Given the rate of incident cases through the beginning of December, losses attributed to the 2022 H5N1 strain might exceed the previous series of outbreaks. 

Tedsuro Nomura, Minister of Agriculture has urged producers to intensify biosecurity.  He stated, "At farms where flu cases were detected, there were many in which basic sanitation measures were not taken" This characterization is contrary to personal experience in Japan where high standards of biosecurity including shower-in-shower-out and other preventive practices are followed. Large egg-production complexes demonstrated adequate structural and operational biosecurity, although standards may vary according to region and type of poultry operation.