South Korea discovered the third bird flu drive

On December 11, South Korea's Ministry of Agriculture said it has found a third case of high-level bird flu in North Cholla province, south of Seoul.

Last month, the country confirmed the discovery of two outbreaks of the H5N1 bird flu virus in two very close poultry farms in North Cholla province, 170 km south of Seoul.

The third case was discovered at a quail farm also in this province, 18 km from the first outbreak. Quail at this farm has been infected with H5N1, with thousands of quail being found dead in the past 4 days.

This latest outbreak took place after South Korea completed the killing of all 760,000 poultry near the two former poultry farms infected with H5N1.

From December 2003 to March 2004, about 400,000 poultry in Korean ranches were infected with H5N1, causing the destruction of 5.3 million poultry. Later tests in the United States showed that at least 9 employees involved in the destruction were also infected with the virus, but no one was seriously ill.

Korean health workers during a bird flu investigation in a village in Iksan, south of Seoul last November.(Photo: TTO)

T.VY