Japan quail farm bird flu 'not H5N1': govt

The Japanese agriculture ministry said Sunday an outbreak of bird flu at a quail farm was not H5N1, the form of the disease that can be deadly to humans.

Government scientists said the disease in central Japan was the less-virulent H7N6 strain.

Workers sanitised the farm in Aichi prefecture Sunday and prepared a large trench to bury most of the 320,000 birds there.

The ministry announced the outbreak Friday, adding that the virus was weak in its toxicity and had not killed any animals. It added that no humans had been infected.

In April and May last year several dead swans tested positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu in Hokkaido, northern Japan.

(c) 2009 AFP