Via Arirang News: Fear of nationwide bird flu outbreak grows as more suspected cases reported. Excerpt:
Fears of a nationwide bird flu outbreak in Korea are growing.
Disease prevention authorities said Tuesday that they suspect a duck farm in the southern city of Jeongeup in Jeollabuk-do Province has been infected with Avian Influenza.
If their suspicions prove true, it would be the first case of AI outside of Gochang and Buan counties, the source of the recent AI outbreaks, and would mean that the risk of birds carrying the virus to other places has increased.
With that in mind, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs announced Tuesday that all ducks within a three-kilometer radius of the infected farms will be culled.
That's a much wider area than the 500-meter radius set earlier, but for now the order excludes chicken.
Earlier in the day, authorities confirmed that the number of poultry farms in Buan and Gochang that have ducks infected with the highly pathogenic H5N8 strain of avian influenza has risen to four.
The same strain of the virus was confirmed in a group of wild ducks found dead in a reservoir near a poultry farm in Gochang on Monday.
Officials say this, as well as several more suspicious cases including a recent one on Jeju Island, increases the chance that migratory ducks are the source of the bird flu outbreak.
