A file picture shows a health official sanitizing a riverside bank in Seoul.[Photo by Namgung Jin-ung = timeid@ajunews.com]
South Korea's agricultural ministry said it has confirmed a case of a highly pathogenic avian flu in the southern port city of Busan.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said it reached the conclusion after conducting detailed tests on a poultry farm with 6,000 birds. The farm had purchased 650 Korean Ogol Chickens last month from Gunsan in the country's southwestern region. Some of the birds died off suddenly, which caused quarantine officials to check the farm.
The ministry is set to conduct a more comprehensive probe while culling all birds at the infected farm as well as restricting movement in the area to contain further outbreaks. Up till Sunday, poultry from Gunsan was sold to Busan, Jeju, Paju and Yangsan. The government is currently seeking to find out if birds originating from the city had been shipped to other regions as well.
Park Bong-kyun, the quarantine chief of the ministry, later pinpointed the southern city of Jeongeup as the origin of the avian influenza's breakout. The virus is believed to have affected Gunsan when chickens sold to a Jeongeup farm were recalled after some of them died, the official said. Reports of dead chickens from Gunsan farm skyrocketed following the recall, he said.
(Yonhap)
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