April 21, 2023

South Korea announces new measures to control bird flu

South Korea's Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs have announced several new measures to increase control of highly pathogenic avian influenza, or bird flu, as new cases are being detected on farms in the country, WATTPoultry reported.

The changes to strengthen poultry farm hygiene controls include the extension of enhanced disinfection requirements currently applied to farms with chickens and ducks to include quails, turkeys, geese, ostriches, and pheasants.

The ministry has mandated that facilities with more than 100,000 laying hens install and use tunnel disinfection facilities. Farm cars and vans, as well as larger vehicles such as trucks, will also need to be registered in the future. The ministry said this is due to the fact that all wheeled vehicles carry the same risk of transmitting bird flu.

To give poultry owners enough time to implement these changes, they will not go into effect until October 19.

There are 75 confirmed bird flu outbreaks in South Korea since the first case of this season was detected in October last year. All the outbreaks have been linked to the H5N1 bird flu virus serotype, which has spread around the world.

Meat ducks and laying hens have been the most affected by bird flu in South Korea. The most recent outbreaks in meat ducks occurred on two farms in South Jeolla province. The premises, which housed approximately 14,000 and 15,000 birds, were located in the counties of Yeongam and Jangheung, respectively, about 300 km south of Seoul.

-      WATTPoultry