October 27, 2005

 

South Korea announces action plan against bird flu
 

 

South Korea announced a broad action plan Wednesday to respond to a potential outbreak of bird flu, saying it would increase its stockpile of a drug believed to be effective in humans who contract the virus.

 

Bird flu hit South Korea when it swept through Asia in 2003-04, but no new cases have been reported since March of last year. The government's announcement came amid growing fears of an outbreak as cases were reported in neighbouring China.

 

Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan presided over a meeting of government ministers and civilian experts before the plan was announced in a release. Officials said a more detailed version was in the works.

 

Under the plan, the government will use four levels to characterise the seriousness of an outbreak, with the first stage being confined to poultry and the most serious being prevalence among humans.

 

Responses range from such ordinary measures such as culling and quarantining birds and disinfecting farms, to temporary closures of schools and mass medication programs for people.

 

In addition, the government said it would increase its stockpile of Tamiflu to a million doses from the current 700,000. Tamiflu, produced by Switzerland's Roche, is considered one of the few remedies likely to be effective in an outbreak of bird flu in humans.

 

The government also said it would provide as much support as possible for research into developing new drugs against the disease.

 

Earlier this month, South Korea established a special quarantine period from November until February, during which it will step up inspections of chickens and ducks at farms throughout the country.

 

Birds at designated farms in 21 cities and towns, in which a strain of the bird flu virus was detected early last year, will be inspected twice daily during the period.

 

The government will also increase monitoring of winter migratory birds that are expected from Russia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia, which have recently experienced outbreaks of the H5N1 bird flu virus.

 

Nineteen cases of bird flu broke out in the country between December 2003 and March 2004, forcing authorities to cull more than five million chickens and ducks.

 

Neighbouring North Korea launched a nationwide campaign against bird flu, strengthening quarantine and reporting systems and enhancing education of poultry farmers, a news report said Sunday.

 

Earlier this year, North Korea killed about 210,000 chickens and other poultry after acknowledging its first bird flu outbreak in March. No new cases have since been reported.

 

Earlier Wednesday, China reported its third outbreak of bird flu in a week.

 

More than 500 chickens and ducks were killed by the latest outbreak Saturday in central China, which prompted authorities to destroy 2,487 others in an attempt to keep the disease from spreading, China's veterinary bureau said in a report.

 

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed or forced the culling of tens of millions of birds since it first emerged in 2003. Occasional human outbreaks of the disease have killed more than 60 people in Southeast Asia, mostly in Vietnam and Thailand.