A fumigator truck sterilizes a field in Chonan.[Yonhap News Photo]
South Korea's agriculture ministry Tuesday reported the first laboratory detection of the H5N6 avian flu virus that has killed six people in China.
The virus was detected from the excrement of a migratory bird last Friday near a river in Chonan south of Seoul, the ministry said, adding poultry farms in the area have been sterilized.
H5N6 is a novel reassortant between H5N1 and a H6N6 virus that had widely been circulating in ducks. It was first detected at a poultry market in China in March 2014 and has been detected in Vietnam, Laos, and Hong Kong.
Aju News Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
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