SEOUL: South Korea on Sunday (Nov 19) said it had confirmed an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N6 bird flu at a duck farm in the south west of the country and raised its bird flu alert level to the highest ranking. The virus was discovered on a farm on Saturday
SEOUL: South Korea on Sunday (Nov 19) said it had confirmed an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N6 bird flu at a duck farm in the south west of the country and raised its bird flu alert level to the highest ranking.
The virus was discovered on a farm on Saturday with some 12,000 ducks in Gochang county, over 270 kilometres southwest of Seoul.
All of the ducks were slaughtered after the discovery, the agriculture ministry said in a statement. This was the country’s first such outbreak since June this year.
The ministry has stepped up disinfection measures to contain a wider spread of the highly contagious bird flu virus and issued a temporary nationwide transport ban of poultry for 48 hours, starting from midnight on Sunday in Seoul.
