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Suspected bird flu cases reported in Yeongam County

Posted January. 06, 2011 11:58,   

한국어

Suspected cases of bird flu were reported Wednesday at a duck farm in Yeongam County, South Jeolla Province.

Quarantine authorities say the cases are most likely a highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza given the large number of ducks that died, adding the area is not far from Haenam County, where the deadly strain was detected from wild birds.

The Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry said close inspections are underway at a Yeongam duck farm after 4,500 of 14,500 ducks died.

“Ducks continued to die Sunday and Monday so the owner of the farm reported this to quarantine authorities,” a ministry official said. “The report was delayed because unlike chickens, ducks show no particular symptoms when infected with bird flu.”

As a preventive measure, quarantine authorities will cull not only ducks at the farm but also more than 70,000 poultry within a 500-meter radius from the farm.

The highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza was detected in wild birds in Iksan, North Jeolla Province (Dec. 7), Seosan, South Chungcheong Province (Dec. 10), and Haenam (Dec. 28). In addition, the disease broke out at a chicken farm in Iksan and a duck farm in Cheonan.

The results of the inspection of the Yeongam farm will come out Friday.

Separately, foot-and-mouth disease broke out en masse Wednesday in Jincheon in North Chungcheong Province, Yongin in Gyeonggi Province, and Yangyang and Hoengseong in Gangwon Province.

With the disease affecting large pig farms, the scale of culling is rapidly growing by the day. As of Monday, 660,000 pigs had been culled, but the figure exceeded 770,000 Tuesday and 820,000 Wednesday.

A quarantine official said, “In addition to mother pigs, we are considering expanding vaccinations to seed pigs,” adding, “The decision on the subject and scale of the vaccinations is being delayed because we must consider the volume of vaccine supplies.”

The government will convene an emergency meeting on food-and-mouth disease with Cabinet ministers at the presidential office Thursday. Slated to attend are Agriculture Minister Yoo Jeong-bok, Public Administration and Security Minister Maeng Hyung-kyu, Strategy and Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun, Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin and Special Affairs Minister Lee Jae-oh.



alwaysj@donga.com