South Korean Prime Minister Han Seung-soo yesterday called for intensive efforts to stop the spread of bird flu after a second outbreak was confirmed to be the H5N1 strain.
“Thorough steps are needed to stop it from spreading to other areas,” Han said at a meeting of senior officials, as veterinarians investigated three more suspected cases.
Quarantine officials confirmed the H5N1 virus caused the deaths of ducks at a farm at Jeongeup, 250km south of Seoul.
All birds at the farm have been slaughtered and buried, with movements of poultry within a 10km radius restricted.
The agriculture ministry said meat from 30,000 birds held at a butchering facility in Naju, 60km south of Jeongeup, had also been destroyed.
“The incident in Jeongeup is a source of concern because the owner did not report the outbreak until 6,500 birds were sent to the Naju butchering facility,” said Kim Chang-seob, chief veterinary officer.
He said the butchering facility had been closed and the use of the five trucks that transported birds had been halted.
“All 13 poultry farms visited by the trucks, and farms within a one kilometer radius of roads used by these vehicles, have been put under close observation, with blood samples taken to check for infection,” Kim said.
The farm in Jeongeup is 30km south of Gimje, where another chicken farm was hit by H5N1 last week.
Some 270,000 chickens at the affected farm and at four others within a 500m radius were slaughtered and buried along with all eggs in the area.
The outbreaks have raised fears that bird flu may be spreading to other areas in North Jeolla Province, home to the nation’s poultry industry.
Ministry officials said they have been investigating a suspected case at a farm in Gobu, just 3km from the farm in Jeongeup.
A duck farm in Sunchang, some 30km from Jeongeup, has been under quarantine after it reported the deaths of birds.
Yesterday, a duck farm some 2km from the chicken farm in Gimje reported a suspected case, prompting quarantine officials to cull 30,000 birds, a ministry official said.
South Korea reported seven cases of H5N1 infection between November 2006 and March last year, and poultry exports to Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and elsewhere were temporarily suspended.
But last June, the World Organization for Animal Health classified the country as being free from the disease.
H5N1 has killed more than 230 people worldwide since late 2003. No South Koreans have contracted the disease.
Experts fear that the virus, which is usually spread directly from birds to humans, could mutate into a form easily transmissible between people and spark a global pandemic.
Airlines in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore yesterday canceled flights to and from the Indonesian island of Bali, after a nearby volcano catapulted an ash tower into the sky. Australia’s Jetstar, Qantas and Virgin Australia all grounded flights after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki on Flores island spewed a 9km tower a day earlier. Malaysia Airlines, AirAsia, India’s IndiGo and Singapore’s Scoot also listed flights as canceled. “Volcanic ash poses a significant threat to safe operations of the aircraft in the vicinity of volcanic clouds,” AirAsia said as it announced several cancelations. Multiple eruptions from the 1,703m twin-peaked volcano in
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done
Farmer Liu Bingyong used to make a tidy profit selling milk but is now leaking cash — hit by a dairy sector crisis that embodies several of China’s economic woes. Milk is not a traditional mainstay of Chinese diets, but the Chinese government has long pushed people to drink more, citing its health benefits. The country has expanded its dairy production capacity and imported vast numbers of cattle in recent years as Beijing pursues food self-sufficiency. However, chronically low consumption has left the market sloshing with unwanted milk — driving down prices and pushing farmers to the brink — while
RSS