Local media reported that officials from the agriculture ministry and Ibaraki prefectural government stated the bird flu virus is far less virulent than the avian flu virus that infected farms last year, and only a small percentage of chickens infected in Mitsukaido have died.
Despite the lack of an immediate threat to humans, the Japanese government began an extermination of 25,300 chickens at the infected farm.
Experts speculate the virus came via migratory birds from South Korea, Taiwan, or other areas of East Asia, or through people and goods coming in from North and Central America.
