South Korea raises warning as bird flu spreads
Source: Agencies |
January 13, 2011, Thursday
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Print Edition
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SOUTH Korea, already battling a serious outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, has raised its bird flu alert level after detecting the H5N1 avian influenza virus at poultry farms in four provinces.
Asia's fourth-largest economy has culled 10 percent of its cattle and pigs as it tries to contain the foot-and-mouth outbreak, triggering a spike in domestic beef and pork prices and exacerbating food inflation. The government on Tuesday announced plans to boost food supply to cope with rising prices ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.
Meanwhile, South Korea raised its bird flu alert a notch from 'caution' to 'watch,' the agriculture ministry said in a statement late on Tuesday.
"The ministry decided to raise the alert as the disease is spreading more quickly," the statement said.
There have been 34 suspected cases of bird flu in poultry, with 16 cases confirmed, the ministry said.
Outbreaks of bird flu have prompted the authorities to cull 470,000 poultry, or 0.36 percent of the domestic stock, a ministry official said, while continuing the quarantine of commercial duck and chicken breeding farms in affected areas.
This comes as the number of livestock culled to contain foot and mouth rises rapidly. The total of pigs and cattle slaughtered is 1.4 million, the ministry said in its statement, up from around 1 million last Friday.
The outbreak of bird flu was first confirmed on December 31 in ducks in the city of Cheonan, South Chungcheong province, and in chickens in Iksan in North Jeolla province.
South Korea has had no human cases of the high-severity bird flu strain. It has had three outbreaks of the virus at poultry farms in the past 10 years.
Agriculture Minister Yoo Jeong-bok has established a nationwide team to contain the spread of the disease, the government said.
Authorities suspect the latest outbreak was brought to the peninsula by migratory birds.
Health experts fear the disease could mutate to a form that could be easily transmitted human-to-human, sparking a deadly global pandemic. Almost all of the human H5N1 infections to date were believed to have taken place directly from birds to humans.
Asia's fourth-largest economy has culled 10 percent of its cattle and pigs as it tries to contain the foot-and-mouth outbreak, triggering a spike in domestic beef and pork prices and exacerbating food inflation. The government on Tuesday announced plans to boost food supply to cope with rising prices ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday.
Meanwhile, South Korea raised its bird flu alert a notch from 'caution' to 'watch,' the agriculture ministry said in a statement late on Tuesday.
"The ministry decided to raise the alert as the disease is spreading more quickly," the statement said.
There have been 34 suspected cases of bird flu in poultry, with 16 cases confirmed, the ministry said.
Outbreaks of bird flu have prompted the authorities to cull 470,000 poultry, or 0.36 percent of the domestic stock, a ministry official said, while continuing the quarantine of commercial duck and chicken breeding farms in affected areas.
This comes as the number of livestock culled to contain foot and mouth rises rapidly. The total of pigs and cattle slaughtered is 1.4 million, the ministry said in its statement, up from around 1 million last Friday.
The outbreak of bird flu was first confirmed on December 31 in ducks in the city of Cheonan, South Chungcheong province, and in chickens in Iksan in North Jeolla province.
South Korea has had no human cases of the high-severity bird flu strain. It has had three outbreaks of the virus at poultry farms in the past 10 years.
Agriculture Minister Yoo Jeong-bok has established a nationwide team to contain the spread of the disease, the government said.
Authorities suspect the latest outbreak was brought to the peninsula by migratory birds.
Health experts fear the disease could mutate to a form that could be easily transmitted human-to-human, sparking a deadly global pandemic. Almost all of the human H5N1 infections to date were believed to have taken place directly from birds to humans.
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