Thousands of quails have died of a "highly pathogenic" bird flu at a farm south of Seoul that was very likely the deadly H5N1 strain, officials said yesterday.
The outbreak in Gimje, some 262km south of the capital, was confirmed to be the H5 strain and most likely is the N1 type, although that hasn't yet been confirmed, said Agriculture Ministry official Kim Chang-sup.
Some 4,000 quails were killed by the virus, and the remaining 286,000 birds at the farm will be slaughtered to try to prevent the spread of the virus, Kim said.
South Korea recently saw two outbreaks of the H5N1 virus of bird flu at chicken farms, and killed over 770,000 chickens to try to prevent the spread of the virus.
The new outbreak site was some 18km south of the first outbreak site in the same province. Quarantine officials will slaughter 70,000 poultry within a 500m radius of the outbreak site, the ministry said in a statement.
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