I think I heard that a flock of birds in Korea had come down with the H5N1 virus. The birds were all killed.
Here we go for another round of Bird flu scares.
iht.com
South Korea begins slaughtering poultry to stem spread of bird flu virus
The Associated PressPublished: November 26, 2006
SEOUL: South Korean quarantine officials on Sunday began slaughtering more than 200,000 poultry after an outbreak of the virulent H5N1 form of bird flu at a chicken farm, the agriculture ministry said.
A total 236,000 poultry within a 1,650-foot radius of the outbreak site in Iksan will be slaughtered to keep the virus from spreading, ministry official Kim Chang-sup said.
The outbreak occurred last week, resulting in the deaths of 13,000 chickens - 6,700 a direct result of infection and the rest culled. South Korea killed 5.3 million birds during the last known outbreak of bird flu in 2003.
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.
Also last week, a low-grade strain of bird flu killed 200 chickens in a separate outbreak south of Seoul. The Agriculture Ministry said the strain was neither H5N1 nor the less dangerous H5N2. |
