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S Korean officials confirm bird flu outbreak

“The incident in Jeongeup is a source of concern because the owner did not report the outbreak until 6,500 birds were sent to the Naju butchering facility. ”

Kim Chang-seob, chief South Korean veterinary officer

South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-soo yesterday called for intensive efforts to stop the spread of bird flu after a second outbreak was confirmed to be the H5N1 strain.

“Thorough steps are needed to stop it from spreading to other areas,” Han said at a meeting of senior officials, as veterinarians investigated three more suspected cases.

Quarantine officials confirmed the H5N1 virus caused the deaths of ducks at a farm at Jeongeup, 250km south of Seoul.

All birds at the farm have been slaughtered and buried, with movements of poultry within a 10km radius restricted.

The agriculture ministry said meat from 30,000 birds held at a butchering facility in Naju, 60km south of Jeongeup, had also been destroyed.

“The incident in Jeongeup is a source of concern because the owner did not report the outbreak until 6,500 birds were sent to the Naju butchering facility,” said Kim Chang-seob, chief veterinary officer.

He said the butchering facility had been closed and the use of the five trucks that transported birds had been halted.

“All 13 poultry farms visited by the trucks, and farms within a one kilometer radius of roads used by these vehicles, have been put under close observation, with blood samples taken to check for infection,” Kim said.

The farm in Jeongeup is 30km south of Gimje, where another chicken farm was hit by H5N1 last week.

Some 270,000 chickens at the affected farm and at four others within a 500m radius were slaughtered and buried along with all eggs in the area.

The outbreaks have raised fears that bird flu may be spreading to other areas in North Jeolla Province, home to the nation’s poultry industry.

Ministry officials said they have been investigating a suspected case at a farm in Gobu, just 3km from the farm in Jeongeup.

A duck farm in Sunchang, some 30km from Jeongeup, has been under quarantine after it reported the deaths of birds.

Yesterday, a duck farm some 2km from the chicken farm in Gimje reported a suspected case, prompting quarantine officials to cull 30,000 birds, a ministry official said.

South Korea reported seven cases of H5N1 infection between November 2006 and March last year, and poultry exports to Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and elsewhere were temporarily suspended.

But last June, the World Organization for Animal Health classified the country as being free from the disease.

H5N1 has killed more than 230 people worldwide since late 2003. No South Koreans have contracted the disease.

Experts fear that the virus, which is usually spread directly from birds to humans, could mutate into a form easily transmissible between people and spark a global pandemic.


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