South Korean quarantine officials are scrambling to control an outbreak of the virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu in one of the Korea?s biggest poultry producing areas, cordoning off infected farms and slaughtering thousands of birds, and disinfecting the area.
South Korea’s farm ministry said on thursday it had discovered a suspected case of bird flu at a poultry farm in the southwest of the country, which could be the country’s first outbreak in about three years.
South Korea stepped up quarantine measures at an area around a farm in Iksan, about 230 kilometers south of Seoul.
Health officials began slaughtering and burying 236,000 birds within a 500-meter radius of the outbreak site.
Investigators confirmed Saturday that the virulent strain of avian flu known as H5N1 was responsible for the sudden deaths of more than 6,000 chickens at the farm just days earlier. A further 6,000 birds were culled immediately.
It was a major threat to Korea’s economy as Japan banned the import of poultry products from Korea.