Global spread of H5N1

Kuwait has imposed a provisional embargo on the imports of live birds and eggs from Bulgaria.

This follows a World Health Organization (WHO) report on an outbreak of bird flu, or H5N1, in the country, according to the Arab Times.

Japan on Dec. 29 ordered the slaughter of some 42,000 chickens after officials confirmed the country's second bird flu outbreak in less than a month.

DNA tests confirmed the H5 strain of the virus at a farm in Miyazaki prefecture in the country's southwest after its owner reported Sunday that several chickens had suddenly died, the local government said.

The World Health Organization cautioned Nov. 18 that a new kind of bird flu hitting European poultry farms would spread among birds, after Britain confirmed its outbreak was of the same strain as in the Netherlands and Germany.
      

A case of bird flu has been detected on a duck-breeding farm in northern England but it is not the deadly H5N1 strain, the government said on Monday, as officials began culling thousands of birds.