Japanese authorities said Tuesday they had ordered the culling of 107,000 chickens at a poultry farm on the southern island of Kyushu after a highly pathogenic strain of H5 avian influenza was confirmed.

About 400 local officials and troops have started to cull all the chickens at the farm in Nankan Town, 900 kilometres south-west of Tokyo, after 50 of them were found dead Monday afternoon, the local Nishinippon Shimbun newspaper reported.

The Kumamoto prefectural government decided to restrict movements of poultry and eggs within three kilometres of the farm in question.

This is the seventh case this winter since the highly pathogenic H5 virus was confirmed at poultry farms in Niigata and Aomori prefectures in late November.

A week ago, about 120,000 were destroyed at a farm in neighbouring Miyazaki prefecture after tests showed the presence of the H5 bird flu strain there.