Japan gets tough on bird flu

2004-03-16 13:00

Tokyo - Japan on Tuesday announced a package of measures to deal with outbreaks of bird flu, including $3.6m in financial aid and plans to punish cover-ups of suspected cases.

"We adopted emergency, comprehensive measures against avian influenza outbreaks at a meeting of the ministers concerned this morning," said a cabinet office official.

Under the measures, the central government will provide some 400 million yen ($3.6m) in the form of special tax grants for prefectural governments affected by bird flu, the official said.

The local governments will use the financial assistance for the purchase of protective gear and disinfectant as well as compensation for poultry farmers hit by a bird flu outbreak.

Mitigate

The central government also plans to provide loans to poultry farms to mitigate any loss of business caused by rumours of bird flu and help local governments boost anti-bird-flu measures.

The package also calls for a bill to be sent to parliament to amend the Domestic Animal Infectious Diseases Control Law in a bid to strengthen punishments for those failing to report a potential bird flu case.

Police are investigating a suspected cover-up by poultry farm company Asada Nosan, whose delayed reporting is thought to have spread the disease through the continued shipment of live poultry and eggs.

The Japanese government has so far confirmed four cases of bird flu, the first in the country since 1925, but has not been able to pinpoint the cause of the outbreak.

Five wild crows, found dead within 40 kilometres of a massive outbreak at one of the firms owned by Asada Nosan in Kyoto, western Japan, have tested positive for the virulent H5N1 strain of avian flu while a sixth was found to have H5.

- AFP