Japan's worst pathogenic avian influenza epidemic has forced the culling of 10 million chickens, reports said.

The culling number is a record in one season.

This was the 57th bird flu outbreak since the start of the season.

"I would like to declare a sort of state of emergency," said Agriculture Minister Tetsuro Nomura as quoted by The Asahi Shimbun.

After the culling of 9,30,000 birds in Shirosato, the total count has come to 2.05 million.

In the one-year span from 2020-2021, the total number of bird flu outbreaks were 52.

9.87 million chickens were killed in that one year, reports said.