Tokyo (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Japan has banned poultry imports from North Korea following a reported bird flu outbreak in Pyongyang, officials said on Thursday.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported on Tuesday that thousands of chickens died from bird flu at a processing plant in the North's capital of Pyongyang last month and that the communist nation was believed to be preparing emergency measures.
Japan imposed its ban later on Tuesday as a preventative measure, although Japanese authorities so far have been unable to confirm the report, an official at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said on condition of anonymity.
North Korea's state media announced last year that the country was strengthening quarantine measures against avian influenza following the outbreak in Southeast Asia, but before this week there had been no reports of the virus in the country.
Japan has trade with North Korea but no diplomatic ties. Pyonyang's refusal to satisfy Japanese demands to provide clearer information on Japanese citizens missing there has derailed the two countries' talks on normalising diplomatic relations.
Japan imported five tonnes of duck meat in 2002, the only poultry import from North Korea over the last five years, the ministry said.
Bird flu has killed 33 people in Vietnam, 13 of them in the latest outbreak that began in December. One died in Cambodia earlier this year, and another 12 in Thailand.
Tokyo currently bans poultry meat imports from more than a dozen nations where avian flu has struck.
Bird flu hit Japan in January for the first time in 79 years. The government confirmed in December the first case of human infection in the country but no death was reported.