South Korea begins culling
South Korea has begun slaughtering hundreds of thousands of birds after a fresh outbreak of H5N1 strain of bird flu, said the Agriculture Ministry.
All poultry within 3km of the outbreak site – a chicken farm in Cheonan, about 92 km south of Seoul – are set to be killed, said ministry official Kim Joon-gul, leading to the killing of 386,000 poultry as a precaution to prevent the spread of the disease.
Since November, this is South Korea’s fifth outbreak, all cases involving the H5N1 strain, with the most recent outbreak resulting in a cull involving approximately 273,000 poultry.
The Ministry suspects migratory birds might have caused the latest outbreak, saying feces samples taken from wild ducks in two reservoirs near the chicken farm were tested positive for the bird flu virus.
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