South Korea - H5N1 - Seosan & Pyeongtaek

[HenryN]

Re: South Korea - H5N1 - Seosan & Pyeongtaek

S Korea plans to kill dogs & pigs over bird flu concerns



After confirming that the outbreak occurred at poultry farm last week was caused by the H5N1 strain, South Korea is now planning to kill a number of birds and other animals like pigs, dogs and cats in order to curb the spread of highly pathogenic form of bird flu.


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<LABEL>Full Article: </LABEL>The country?s agriculture ministry last weak had announced the possible virulent strain of the bird flu virus in Iksan, about 230 km south of Seoul. The ministry had suspected that the Iksan virus that has killed 6,000 chicken since last Sunday was related to the deadly H5NI strain that has killed 140 people worldwide.
Quarantine officials have already killed 125,000 chickens within a 500-metre (1,650-foot) radius of the avian influenza strain affected site in Iksan, in order to block the spread of the deadly virus.
Officials on Saturday ascertained that the outbreak was caused by the H5N1 virus and began slaughtering birds Sunday.
The South Korean authorities expect to cull 236,000 poultry and destroy some 6 million eggs by the end of the week. "We finished culling of all poultry at the infected farm on Saturday and began slaughtering other poultry near the farm from yesterday," said an official at the Agriculture ministry.
The country also intends to slaughter about 300 pigs and 600 dogs and an unspecified number of cats in the area by Thursday, the ministry said.
However, animal health experts have their own opinion about the slaughter of animals like dogs, pigs and cats due to the bird flu strain, which is really unusual in Asia where most countries concentrate solely on destroying poultry at the time of the bird flu outbreak. They suggested the step as ?a bit of an extreme measure? as there was no definitive scientific evidence to suggest that cats or dogs could pass the virus to humans.
Country?s Center of Disease Control and Prevention has started examining the neighborhood villages? farmers to check if the virus may have been passed to humans. No infections have been reported, so far.
Since its outbreak in 2003, bird flu has reportedly killed some 250 people worldwide. This is South Korea's first outbreak in three years of H5N1. The country had slaughtered 5.3 million birds and also cats and dogs during the last known outbreak of bird flu in 2003, in an attempt to prevent the disease from spreading.
A low-grade strain of bird flu has also struck South Korea last week. The viruses found in two different places, however, the Agriculture Ministry said were not the H5N1 strain. The strain killed 200 chickens in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul, and some 510 chickens in Yangpyeong, 55 kilometers east of the capital.
Besides culling, quarantine authorities have restricted the shipment of more than 5 million poultry from 221 farms within a 10-km radius of the affected farm. Japan has already suspended South Korean poultry imports.



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[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: South Korea - H5N1 - Seosan &amp; Pyeongtaek

No traces of bird flu found in Seosan, ministry says

SEOUL, Nov. 27 (Yonhap) -- The deaths of a huge number of chickens in Seosan of South Choongcheong Province last week was not related to the deadly bird flu virus, South Korea's Agriculture Ministry said Monday.

Chicken farm operators at Seosan, just north of the site of a bird flu outbreak in Iksan, 230 kilometers south of Seoul, have formally requested an investigation by the state veterinary service after more than 1,000 chickens died since Nov. 20 without a clear reason.

http://english.yna.co.kr/Engnews/20061127/460100000020061127231720E9.html

[Gert van der Hoek]

Re: South Korea - H5N1 - Seosan &amp; Pyeongtaek

Avian flu outbreak moves up west coast


November 29, 2006 ?? DAEJEON - Two chickens at a farm in Seosan, South Chungcheong province, were confirmed to have been infected with bird flu, the South Chungcheong provincial government said yesterday.

"Two of 80 chicks tested at a farm in Hwacheonri, Seosan, were found positive for bird flu and were referred to the National Veterinary Research Quarantine Service," a provincial government official said.

The infected chicks were among 49,000 chicks sent to Seosan on Nov. 20 by two breeding farms in Iksan, 140 kilometers south of Seosan, where the virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu was first discovered Thursday.

The virus strain in the new outbreak will not be known until this Thursday, authorities said. According to the provincial government, none of the chicks at the farm showed symptoms of the disease.

Until the test results are ready, the provincial government will only keep the chicks under observation and ban their transfer. Other tests are under way at five additional farms who bought chicks from breeding farms in Iksan.

"If the virus is highly pathogenic, most of the chicks at the farm would probably have died. But at this farm, about 5 percent have died, which is about an average rate," said Kim Jong-uk, director at the livestock department of the city government.

Still another bird flu outbreak was confirmed yesterday in Yangpyeong, Gyeonggi province, the second to have been found in the province recently.

A farm owner in Gaegumyeon, Yangpyeong county, reported to the center on Friday that about 800 of his 1,700 chickens had died over three or four days. But the strain of that virus was a low pathogenic form, the center said. The farm has been quarantined and disinfected.

In Seoul, Park Hong-soo, the minister of agriculture, and his colleague Rhyu Si-min at the Health Ministry continued the administration's campaign to assure the public that poultry is safe to eat if cooked.

At a press briefing, the ministers read from a statement that said, "Chickens, ducks and eggs in the bird flu outbreak areas have all been destroyed or banned from trade." Cooked chicken is safe, they reiterated, trying to avert a flight from poultry products by nervous Koreans.

http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200611/28/200611280047598539900090409041.html

[AlaskaDenise]

Re: South Korea - H5N1 - Seosan &amp; Pyeongtaek

additional info...
http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/engli...al/174704.html


<!--/##### news title ##### --><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=590 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 10px; PADDING-TOP: 10px">The deaths of a huge number of chickens in Seosan of South Choongcheong Province last week was not related to the deadly bird flu virus, South Korea's Agriculture Ministry said Monday.



Chicken farm operators at Seosan, just north of the site of a bird flu outbreak in Iksan, 230 kilometers south of Seoul, have formally requested an investigation by the state veterinary service after more than 1,000 chickens died since Nov. 20 without a clear reason.


"After a close investigation, it has been confirmed that the deaths were unrelated to avian influenza virus," a ministry official said.


"The service needs more investigation, but the deaths are highly likely to have been caused by common poultry infections."

The Agriculture Ministry has been on high alert since Saturday, when it was reported that a highly virulent strain of bird flu virus caused a huge number of chickens to die in Iksan. Since Saturday, the ministry has culled nearly 100,000 chickens, pigs, cats and hatchery eggs in the areas near the outbreak site.



A strain of a highly pathogenic strain of the bird flu virus has been cited by the World Health Organization for the deaths of at least 148 people in 10 countries since late 2003. Of the 43 countries to have reported bird flu outbreaks, 28 have not yet fully contained it.


In 2003 and 2004, South Korea destroyed 5.3 million poultry at a cost of about 1.5 billion won (US$1.6 million) to prevent the spread of the disease. No South Koreans have fallen ill from bird flu. SEOUL, Nov. 27 (Yonhap News)
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[Reeves]

Re: South Korea - H5N1 - Seosan &amp; Pyeongtaek

Bird flu shows signs of spreading in South Korea
Posted: 28 November 2006 1154 hrs
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South Korean health officials carry samples of bird flu-infected chickens</TD></TR><TR><TD> </TD><TD class=update> </TD></TR><TR><TD> </TD><TD></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
SEOUL: The potentially deadly H5NI strain of bird flu has apparently spread to a second poultry farm in South Korea, health authorities said on Tuesday, as a cull of tens of thousands of chickens continued around the first farm.

The second case was reported on a farm in Hwangdeung district, some three kilometres southwest of the farm in Seokmae village where the virus was first discovered last week.

Both farms are on the outskirts of the city of Iksan, 230 kilometres (141 miles) south of Seoul.

"Tests are being conducted after a second suspected case of a highly pathogenic avian flu was found," the agriculture ministry said, adding the results would be known by late Tuesday.

The farm in Hwangdeung reported to health authorities after some 200 of its 12,000 chickens died on Sunday.

"If the case is confirmed as a highly pathogenic case, all the birds within a radius of 500 metres from the second farm would also be culled," a quarantine official at Iksan told AFP.

Three checkpoints manned by quarantine authorities and police were set up around the Hwangdeung farm to control vehicle and people movements, he said.

The agriculture ministry has been culling tens of thousands of poultry and other animals since a highly contagious strain of the H5N1 virus was detected at the farm at Seokmae.

The ministry said more than 170,000 chicken at several farms within a radius of 500 metres from the site of the first infection had been slaughtered and buried during the past two days.

More than 6.6 million eggs and newly hatched chickens produced in the area were also destroyed.

By Thursday the ministry plans to complete the culling of about 236,000 chickens and ducks as well as 300 pigs and 577 dogs.

The agriculture ministry has also confirmed three other outbreaks in other districts but said these were caused by a mild strain of bird flu not lethal to humans.

South Korea was the first country to report avian flu when the latest outbreaks, the largest and most severe on record, began in Asia in mid-2003.

From December 2003 to March 2004, South Korea destroyed 5.3 million ducks and chickens at a cost of 150 billion won (now 160 million dollars) and in December last year declared itself free of the virus. ? AFP/so

[Sally Furniss]

Re: South Korea - H5N1 - Seosan &amp; Pyeongtaek

Thanks Donaldson!

Do you have a link please?

[Reeves]

Re: South Korea - H5N1 - Seosan &amp; Pyeongtaek

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stori...243952/1/.html

[Reeves]

Re: South Korea - H5N1 - Seosan &amp; Pyeongtaek

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/...a_Bird_Flu.php
South Korea to begin killing dogs, pigs in bid to stem bird flu<!-- /headline --><!-- subhead --><!-- /subhead --><!-- byline -->
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<!-- /article tools - narrow (used with span photos) --><!-- copy -->SEOUL, South Korea: South Korean officials were planning Tuesday to kill hundreds of dogs and pigs to try preventing the spread of bird flu after an outbreak among chickens, but experts question the merits of killing other animals to stem the disease.
A poultry slaughter began Sunday, a day after the outbreak of the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain was discovered at a farm in Iksan, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) south of Seoul.
The killing of 677 dogs and 300 pigs was scheduled Tuesday, but a lack of available workers could mean a delay, a city official said on condition of anonymity, saying he was not authorized to speak to media.
About 236,000 chickens are also planned for slaughter and 6 million eggs will be destroyed, the Agriculture Ministry has said.
<!-- sidebar --><!-- today in links -->International experts have questioned the necessity of killing non-poultry species to stem bird flu's spread, but South Korean officials said such a step was not unusual ? and has been taken in other countries without public knowledge.




Since ravaging Asia's poultry in late 2003, the H5N1 virus has killed at least 153 people worldwide. Infections among people have been traced to contact with infected birds, but experts fear it could mutate into a form that could create a human pandemic.
South Korea has also been hit by a low-grade strain of bird flu that is not harmful to humans.