More than ¾ million birds culled
A South Korean government official said over the weekend that South Korea has culled around 771,000 chickens since it reported two new bird flu outbreaks in its southwest late last month.
The mass culling began after bird flu hit a poultry farm at Iksan, 230 kilometers southwest of Seoul, on November 22 before spreading to a second farm nearby two days later.
The government began culling hundreds of thousands of poultry in the affected areas after the outbreaks were found to have been caused by a highly pathogenic strain of the H5N1 virus.
The World Health Organisation reports that the highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza has resulted in more than 250 cases of human illness, killing more than 150 people.
No human casualties from the avian influenza virus have been reported in South Korea.
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