Bird flu spreads to sixth South Korean farm(high path)

AFP ^ | 02/10/07

[TigerLikesRooster]

Bird flu spreads to sixth South Korean farm

24 minutes ago

Bird flu has spread to a sixth farm in South Korea, despite government efforts to contain the deadly virus by culling more than two million birds, officials have said.

A new outbreak has been discovered at a farm near the capital Seoul with some 133,000 chickens, the agriculture ministry said.

"Test results confirmed that breeding chickens at a farm in Iljuk Village were infected with high contagious bird flu virus," the ministry said in a statement.

Poultry at the farm, in Iljuk Village near Ansung City, some 90 kilometres (56 miles) southeast of Seoul, began dying on Tuesday and the case was reported to authorities on Friday. It is not yet known whether the virus is of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain.

Officials immediately ordered the culling of the remaining chickens, and of 107,000 other birds at 28 farms within a three-kilometre radius of the affected farm.

They also declared a 10-kilometre quarantine zone, from which movement of birds and eggs will be prohibited.

It is the country's sixth outbreak of avian influenza since November.

Officials have slaughtered 2.3 million birds at farms including those near the southern cities of Iksan, Gimje and Asan after the country's first case of bird flu in almost three years was confirmed on November 25.

South Korea was hit hard by bird flu between December 2003 and March 2004, prompting the cull of 5.3 million poultry costing about one billion dollars.

Bird flu has killed more than 150 people worldwide since late 2003 and there remain fears it may become a far more highly contagious disease that could trigger a deadly, global pandemic.

[TigerLikesRooster]

It appears that bird flu is spreading northward. The first outbreak is in Iksan, in a S.W. region of S. Korea. Since then, it is spreading along west coast of S. Korea, moving closer to Seoul.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Ping!

[SevenofNine]

DAMNN TIGER

[blam]

Meanwhile in the UK:

Supermarkets Alert For Mass Turkey Recall (Bird Flu - UK)

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #4

Yeah, either end of Eurasia is pretty busy now. Japan had a bird flu outbreak, too.

[Domandred]

Bird flu has killed more than 150 people worldwide since late 2003

Oh the humanity!

[hatfieldmccoy]

If these people would quit friggin the fowl (they just explode) behind the hen house this would not be happening...

[steve86]

Kind of an interesting thing in my community today. A clinic was giving free flu shots to anyone who wanted one, due to unused supply (these are the normal seasonal influenza inoculations, of course, not avian). The offer was oversubscribed and the clinic actually ran out before the starting time (due to people pre-registering). I did manage to get one, although it is very late in the season and you have to allow for at least a couple of weeks to produce antibodies.

Most of the reason for the big turnout was local coverage in the local newspaper today of the young girl who died from flu complications in the western part of our state. This story happened to be on the front page of the paper while the free clinic offer was just inside.

Regarding the avian influenza, I do read the specialized sites and the situation does seem to be ramping up after a lull.

[GOPJ]

Thanks for the ping.