December 11, 2006

South Korea confirms third bird flu case in two months

South Korea's agriculture ministry said on Monday (Dec 11) it had found a third case of highly pathogenic bird flu in North Cholla province south of Seoul.

Last month, South Korea confirmed its first two outbreaks of the H5N1 strain in about three years, saying the virus had been found at two poultry farms close to each other in North Cholla province.

The case has been confirmed as the H5N1 strain of bird flu, the ministry said in a statement, adding thousands of birds at the farm had died over the past four days.

The outbreak occurred in Gimje, some 262 kilometers (160 miles) south of the capital.

The new outbreak site was some 18 kilometers (11 miles) south of the first outbreak site in the same province. It emerged just after South Korea had completed culling all 760,000 poultry near the two farms already affected by H5N1.

Quarantine officials will slaughter about 70,000 poultry within a 500-metre (1,640-feet) radius of the outbreak site and control movement of poultry and eggs within a 10-kilometre (6-mile) radius, the ministry said.

Between December 2003 and March 2004, bird flu killed 400,000 poultry at South Korean farms. During that outbreak, the country destroyed 5.3 million birds.