Experts isolated a suspected bird flu virus Thursday from some of the hundreds of poultry that died at a Japanese farm, The Associated Press quoted officials as saying, amid fears of an outbreak in the country's main chicken-producing region. The recent spate of poultry deaths may have been caused the deadly H5N1 virus, or another bird flu strain, Miyazaki prefecture (state) official Hisanori Ogura said, adding that preliminary test results were expected within a day. More than 1,300 chickens have died in a suspected new bird flu outbreak since Monday at the farm in Miyazaki's Hyuga City. Officials have sent a virus sample isolated from some of the dead birds to a national laboratory near Tokyo, Ogura said.
