On the 6th local time, the Niigata Prefectural Government announced that a chicken farm in Tennai City, Niigata Prefecture, Japan reported a large number of chicken deaths on the 5th and confirmed a highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak on the 6th. The local epidemic prevention department urgently slaughtered about 350000 chickens involved in the epidemic on the same day. This is the fifth reported avian influenza outbreak in Japan in over half a month. Since October 17th, there have been outbreaks of avian influenza in Hokkaido, Chiba Prefecture, and Shimane Prefecture.