No land to bury dead chickens in Japan: How deadly is the current bird flu outbreak?

Japan does not have enough land to bury its dead chickens. Due to the ongoing outbreak of bird flu, millions of chickens have been culled in the Asian country.

As per Japanese state broadcaster NHK report on Tuesday (4 April), 16 of the country’s 47 prefectures are facing land issues that have hampered efforts to dispose culled birds properly.

Let’s take a closer look at the situation in Japan and just how bad this current avian flu outbreak is.

Japan’s worst-ever bird flu outbreak

According to Japan Times, since last October, around 80 farms in 26 prefectures have reported bird flu cases.

As per the NHK report, over 17 million chickens have been culled due to the outbreak this season.

Local governments and poultry farms generally bury these birds to prevent the further spread of the virus. But now they do not have adequate land to discard the carcasses.

Twelve prefectures, including Kagoshima and Hiroshima, reported many instances where the land was found unsuitable for burial. Seven other prefectures have run out of land.

Sakoda Yoshihiro, a professor at Hokkaido University, suggested steps to deal with the issue, including burning these birds or reducing the number of such killings, reported NHK.

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Japan’s last big bird flu outbreak was in fiscal 2020 when it had to kill 9.87 million birds.

But, what is bird flu?

Avian flu is a disease in birds triggered by infection with avian influenza Type A viruses, says US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

These highly contagious viruses are found in saliva, nasal secretions, and feces of the infected birds.

This disease that affects poultry and wild birds usually blows up in autumn before subsiding around summer, noted BBC.

Its deadly H5N1 strain is of particular concern, which according to the World Health Organization (WHO), has had a 53 per cent mortality in the rare cases witnessed in humans, reported Al Jazeera.

H5N1 was first detected in domestic waterfowl in China in 1996. It then spread to migratory birds around 2005, noted Smithsonian Magazine.

These migratory wild birds transmitted the virus through feathers, droppings and direct contact across the globe.

ALSO READ: Bird flu is spreading: Is this a foreboding of the next pandemic?

Bird flu crisis hikes egg prices

Avian influenza, commonly known as bird flu, has sent egg prices soaring in several countries worldwide.

As per Dutch financial company Rabobank, egg prices touched a 10-year high of 235 yen ($1.8) last month in Japan as it struggles with egg shortages, reported CNN.

The shortage in Japan has forced companies including McDonald’s and 7-Eleven to halt the sale of egg-related items or ramp up their prices, as per Bloomberg. 

The cost of eggs in the United States and European Union increased by 155 per cent and 62 per cent, respectively, between the first quarters of 2022 and 2023, Rabobank’s report this month said.

Nan-Dirk Mulder, Rabobank’s senior analyst of animal protein, wrote that egg prices around the world “are 2.5 times higher than the reference year of 2007, and have increased more than 100 per cent since this time last year”.

“Prices in many other markets have reached historic highs as well, including in Thailand, the Philippines, Israel, New Zealand, Nigeria, Kenya, Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina,” the report added.

How bad is the current bird flu outbreak?

Millions of birds around the world have died due to the worst-ever outbreak of bird flu.

“The current virus has affected 80 different bird species," Professor Munir Iqbal, the head of the Avian Influenza Virus (AIV) group at the Pirbright Institute, told BBC.

The virus spread from Europe and Asia to North America and then to birds in South and Central America, as per Al Jazeera.

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) said last November that more than 50 million birds died due to the current avian flu outbreak.

France, which was the worst affected EU country last year, said it culled more than 20 million birds.

Not just birds, but the virus has also jumped to some wild mammals - such as seals, otters, wild dogs and foxes. Countries such as Peru, the US and the United Kingdom, have reported bird flu cases in mammals.

It is believed that most mammals directly caught the virus from infected birds. However, the bird flu outbreak that led to the culling of more than 50,000 mink on a farm in northwestern Spain last October is believed to be a rare case where the mammals spread the disease to each other.

Scientists have not confirmed why this outbreak is so much worse, but BBC says it may be because the virus has mutated which has made it easier to transmit from bird to bird.

ALSO READ: In UK, bird flu kills dolphins

What about humans?

According to the WHO, from 2003 to 25 February 2023, there have been a total of 873 human cases of H5N1 infection across 21 countries, out of which 458 were fatal.

Cambodia reported two human cases of bird flu in late February, including an 11-year-old girl who died. Her father was the other infected person, which sparked the fear of human-to-human transmission.

However, Cambodian health authorities confirmed in early March that they were “infected from birds in their village” and “no transmission between father and daughter has been found”, as per media reports.

In March this year, China reported its third human case of the H3N8 strain of bird flu.

Last year, the country had logged its first two human cases of this strain, which the China CDC said was “an episodic avian-to-human interspecies transmission” and that the virus “does not yet have the ability to effectively infect humans”, reported Sout China Morning Post (SCMP).

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) started preparing models for worst-case scenarios of human-to-human transmission of bird flu following the death of the girl in Cambodia.

Its modelling says that one in 400 people would die if the infection-fatality rate of the bird flu virus is similar to COVID-19. The other more severe scenario likens the rate to the 1918 flu pandemic and predicts death of one in 40 infected people, reported Sky News.

Dr Meera Chand, from the UKHSA, told BBC that the current evidence suggests that H5N1 cannot transmit easily to people.

“However, viruses constantly evolve, and we remain vigilant for any evidence of changing risk to the population, as well as working with partners to address gaps in the scientific evidence.”

What is the world doing?

Most countries just cull all the poultry birds if an infection is detected.

China is vaccinating its domestic poultry flocks. France has launched 80 million doses of bird flu vaccines to protect its poultry birds against the virus.

Meanwhile, some vaccine manufacturers – GSK Plc, Moderna Inc and CSL Seqirus – told Reuters in March they have started developing jabs for humans.

Sanofi said they “stand ready” to start production of bird flu vaccines for humans against the H5N1 strain if required.

With inputs from agencies

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