South Korea to kill cats and dogs over bird flu fears

South Korea plans to kill cats and dogs to try to prevent the spread of bird flu after an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus at a chicken farm last week, officials said today.

Animal health experts, however, suggested it was "a bit of an extreme measure" when there was no definitive scientific evidence to suggest that cats or dogs could pass the virus to humans.

Quarantine officials have already killed 125,000 chickens within a 1,650-foot radius of the outbreak site in Iksan, about 155 miles south of Seoul, the Agriculture Ministry said.

Officials began slaughtering poultry yesterday, a day after they confirmed that the outbreak was caused by the H5N1 strain.

They plan to slaughter a total of 236,000 poultry, as well as an unspecified number of other animals, including pigs, and all dogs and cats in the area by Thursday, the ministry said. About six million eggs also will be destroyed, it said.

Slaughtering cats and dogs near an area infected with bird flu would be highly unusual in Asia.

Indonesia has killed pigs in the past, but most countries concentrate solely on destroying poultry. However, it would not be the first time for South Korea to kill cats and dogs due bird flu concerns. An official at the Agriculture Ministry said South Korea had slaughtered cats and dogs along with 5.3 million birds during the last known outbreak of bird flu in 2003.

Another ministry official, Kim Chang-sup, insisted killing cats and dogs to curtail the spread of bird flu was not an unusual practice.

"Other countries do it. They just don't talk about it," Kim said, adding that all mammals are potentially subject to the virus and that South Korea is just trying to take all possible precautionary measures.

"It's highly unusual, and it's not a science-based decision," said Peter Roeder, a Rome-based animal health expert with the UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation or FAO, who published research about cats and bird flu earlier this year in the journal Nature. "We've got absolutely no reason to believe they're important," he said.

Dr Jeff Gilbert, an animal health expert at the FAO in Vietnam, described South Korea's plan as "a bit of an extreme measure".

He said dogs and cats have been known to occasionally become infected, but they pose little risk to humans and that in most cases, the animal has contracted the virus through eating infected poultry.

Tigers and snow leopards in a Thailand zoo died in 2003 and 2004 after being fed infected chicken carcasses. Earlier this year, a few domestic cats tested positive for the virus in Europe.

The H5N1 virus began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in late 2003 and has killed at least 153 people worldwide.

So far, the disease remains hard for people to catch, and most human cases have been traced to contact with infected birds. But experts fear it will mutate into a form that is easily spread among people, possibly creating a pandemic that could kill millions.

South Korea has also been hit by a low-grade strain of bird flu that is not harmful to humans. North Korea, meanwhile, has stepped up prevention measures, by inoculating poultry and closely monitoring migratory birds, the country's official Korean Central News Agency reported Monday.

Bird flu hit North Korea early last year, prompting the slaughter of about 210,000 chickens and other poultry. No new cases of bird flu have since been reported.

Second confirmed bird flu outbreak

A second outbreak of bird flu has been detected in Seosan, about 140 kilometers north of Iksan where the fatal H5N1 led to a massive culling of poultry and other animals.

Provincial officials said the sick chickens were hatched from eggs distributed in mid-November from a breeding farm in Iksan, North Jeolla Province. But the authorities have not yet confirmed whether the Seosan chickens were infected with the highly virulent strain.

¡°Preliminary tests indicate the virus of being a harmless strain,¡± the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said in a statement.

To prevent the spread of the virus, quarantine officials have so far destroyed about 100,000 chickens and ducks within a 500-meter radius of Iksan, which is about 250 kilometer south of Seoul. Officials confirmed the H5N1 virus in the Iksan poultry on Saturday.

The ministry said the government plans to cull a total of 236,000 birds, in addition to other animals such as pigs, dogs and cats in the area by Thursday.

About six million eggs will also be destroyed.

Seosan officials said they are waiting for the preliminary test results of chickens from eight farms in the area. They said measures have been put in place to contain the transfer of livestock. Five of the farms have bought livestock from breeding farms in Iksan, the authorities said.

The latest bird flu case in Seosan is expected to unnerve poultry-related industries. Since news of the first outbreak on Nov. 22 major retailers have been seeing chicken sales decline.

Lotte Mart said sales dropped 15 percent between Friday and Sunday compared to a year ago. Samsung Tesco¡¯s Homeplus says sales have dropped 20 percent during the same period.

Demand for poultry at E-Mart, the nation¡¯s largest discount store chain, has also been declining compared to a year ago, however, at a slower pace.

¡°Sales have climbed 55 percent from Thursday to Saturday compared to a year ago, but the growth rate is slowing down,¡± said Park Soo-beom, a spokesman for Shinsegae Co.¡¯s E-Mart. ¡°We expect sales to slow further if there continues to be reports of the bird flu spreading because consumers would feel more uneasy,¡± he added.

Hallim Co., the nation¡¯s No. 1 supplier of chicken and poultry products, suffered a 30 percent drop in sales from Thursday to Monday. Hallim commands about 25 percent of the nation¡¯s chicken manufacturing market.

¡°The sales decline is slower compared to the first scare the nation experienced in 2003,¡± said Kim Dae-sik, the spokesman for Hallim. ¡°But we attribute this slower pace to consumers¡¯ wider awareness of the avian influenza and how consuming chicken, if well cooked, is not harmful to humans.¡±

Experts assure the public that poultry is safe to consume when it is cooked at temperatures above 75 degrees Celsius for more than five minutes.

Korea reported its first outbreak of H5N1 in December 2003. About 5.3 million chickens and ducks valued at 150 billion won ($161 million) were slaughtered within four months.

The H5N1 virus is known to have infected 258 people in 10 countries over the past three years, killing 153 of them, according to the Geneva-based World Health Organization.

Seventy-five deaths have been recorded by the WHO this year.

This is more than the United Nations agency counted in the previous two years combined.

So far, Korea has reported no human H5N1 cases, according to the WHO.

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