TOKYO, Jan 16 (Reuters) - An outbreak of bird flu at a poultry farm in southwestern Japan was due to the lethal H5N1 strain of the virus, a farm ministry official said on Tuesday, confirming the first such case to hit Japan in three years.

There have been no reported cases of human infection.

Earlier tests had shown the chickens on the farm in Miyazaki prefecture were infected with an H5 subtype of the virus, but further testing was needed to determine whether the virus had the N1 component that would make it the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain or the less lethal H5N2.

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