While the infection alert for Covid-19 is gradually removed, the livestock industry is now suffering from avian flu again in this winter.
As announced by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries on January 26, the bird flu occurrence in poultry farms recorded 66 cases from October 2022 until the date in 25 prefectures across the country, causing a record-high culling cases of 11.53 million birds.
Accordingly, much carbon dioxide is being used to prevent the infection. The number of culled birds using carbon dioxide per 30kg cylinder varies so much depending on the weather condition of the day and the skill of workers from 500 to 1,000 birds.
It is estimated according to the whole number of culling that at least 300tons of carbon dioxide is being consumed in this season.
It was Niigata Prefecture which suffered damages most seriously after the beginning of this year. A pseudo　sick bird was recognized and culled 1.3 million birds on January 6, in Murakami City of Kaetsu District on January 6, followed by Joetsu City on January 13 causing a total of 105,000 birds.
According to Nippon Ekitan Niigata Branch Office which organized the supply of carbon dioxide, Murakami City used about 1600 30-kg cylinders (weighing about 48tons) and Joetsu City about 200 same-type cylinders (weighing about 6tons).
In another large-scale case, Shirosato Machi of Ibaraki Prefecture used 900 to 1,000 cylinders of carbon dioxide (27 to 30 tons) to cull 930,000 birds which occurred on January 9. It was followed by the bird flu occurred in Miyoshi City of Hiroshima Prefecture on January 10, and 800-900 carbon dioxide cylinders were supplied for the infection preventive work of 835,000 birds.
Among these cases, it can be pointed out that the administrative organizations and the regional private companies commonly made mutual prior arrangements in preparation for emergency. Each of the three prefectures had experienced preventive measures of bird flu before the last season. The lesson from the past actual experiences seems to have contributed the acceleration of the preventive work.
The bird flu virus is brought in by wild birds like migratory birds. In this season particularly, wild birds carry much virus and it is deemed to cause the pandemic infection. For the time being the situation seems to be quite unpredictable.