Poor Hygiene Blamed After Tests Reveal 77 People in Japan Infected With H5n2

At least 77 people in Japan are thought to have been infected with a mild strain of bird flu in what could be the world's first case of bird-to-human infection with the H5N2 variant of the disease.

Health officials said none of the victims had shown symptoms of bird flu, and that there was no risk of the virus spreading via human contact. Most of the infected people were working on poultry farms in Ibaraki and Saitama prefectures, where more than 353 workers, their relatives and local officials have been tested since the outbreak was detected early last summer.

The test results showed that antibodies for the virus were very likely to have been present in the blood of 70 people in Ibaraki and seven in Saitama. It is a much milder version of the virulent H5N1 strain that has struck Turkey and which has killed 76 people, mostly in south-east Asia and China, since 2003. One, non-fatal case of the more deadly virus has been recorded in Japan.

Ibaraki prefecture, about 60 miles north of Tokyo, has been hit by several bird flu outbreaks since last year, and hundreds of thousands of birds have been culled across Japan since the virus was detected in 2004 in the first outbreak for 80 years. The infected people were thought to have been exposed to the virus because they did not take proper precautions when handling sick birds. The health ministry advised poultry workers to regularly wash their hands and to wear masks, even in areas thought to be unaffected by the virus.