Via Yonhap News, an April 17 report: N. Korea says bird flu spreading following additional outbreak: report. Excerpt:
North Korea has informed the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) that bird flu is spreading in the country following an additional outbreak of the disease, a U.S. radio report said Thursday.
The North told the OIE on Wednesday that the H5N1 bird flu broke out at a chicken farm in the capital city of Pyongyang on March 27, though it did not elaborate on how many chickens died from the disease, the Washington-based Voice of America (VOA) reported.
The North's move came a week after the North informed the OIE that more than 46,000 chickens had died from the disease after bird flu broke out at a separate chicken farm in Pyongyang on March 21 -- the first outbreak in almost a year.
The North has stepped up quarantine efforts to contain the highly contagious disease, the VOA said.
The World Health Organization, meanwhile, has not received any request for help from the North Korean authorities, the Washington-based Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported.
North Korea sustained extensive damage due to bird flu last year.
Bird flu is the latest disease to hit the communist country in recent months.
In February, the North's state media reported that the country had culled 2,900 pigs as a preventive measure to stop the spread of foot-and-mouth disease and buried about 360 others that had died from the disease.
