January 20, 2014

South Korea began culling thousands of poultry after the spread of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI, H5N8 type) bird flu, which has been confirmed in three farms located in North Jolla Province, in the southwest side of the Korean Peninsula.

Since a suspected case of avian influenza was reported on January 12 at a poultry farm in Gochang in North Jeolla Province, local authorities had already began culling all of the more than 20,000 ducks on the farm, the agricultural ministry said.

In response to the report, Hong Kong's Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department announced on January 17 that it has banned the import of poultry meat and products (including poultry eggs) from the province with immediate effect.

About 5 000 tonnes of frozen and chilled poultry meat, as well as about 4.9 million poultry eggs, were imported into Hong Kong from Korea between January and November last year, according to a CFS spokesman.

The last outbreak in South Korea occurred in 2011, when more than six million poultry were culled at more than 280 farms across the country.