Jan 05, Kathmandu- An outbreak of bird flu has spread to a farm in Japan's northern Iwate region.

This is the 19th outbreak of bird flu in Japan, according to the agriculture ministry. The death rate of chickens in the last farm is increasing and the infection of bird flu was confirmed in the chickens of the farm in the test conducted on Sunday, according to the the Ministry. The regional government said 50,000 chickens have been culled as a result. Iwate has also banned the movement of 17,000 birds kept at two other farms within a 3-kilometer (1.86-mile) radius.

About 3.8 million birds kept within 10 kilometers of the infected farm will be temporarily prevented from leaving the area. On Thursday, another farm in Iwate and a farm in central Aichi were found to be infected with the bird flu virus, forcing the culling of 120,000 and 147,000 birds, respectively. On December 29, an outbreak was confirmed at a farm in eastern Ibaraki, leading to the culling of 1.08 million birds.