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New bird flu case hits S Korea
A new bird flu outbreak at a South Korean chicken farm has prompted health authorities to impose a new quarantine zone and cull 400,000 birds.
A new bird flu outbreak at a South Korean chicken farm has prompted health authorities to impose a new quarantine zone and cull 400,000 birds, officials said on Monday.
Chickens at a farm in Yangju, 30 kilometers north of Seoul, tested positive for the avian virus, the ministry of agriculture and forestry said.
"We have imposed a quarantine zone in Yangju to cull 400,000 chickens and ducks within a three-kilometer radius," a ministry official said.
A dead magpie in Yangsan, 420 kilometers south of Seoul, was infected with the virus, the ministry said.
South Korea has culled more than three million poultry since the virus was detected first on December 15.
There has been no case of human infection, and health authorities say the strain is a weaker variant of the H5N1 virus that has proved fatal to humans in Vietnam and Thailand.
