South Korea Reports More HPAI H5N6 In Poultry & Wild Birds

#13,024


While a far cry from last year's record HPAI H5 epizootic (300+ farms infected, 30 million birds culled), South Korea's struggles against avian flu continue this winter with the arrival of a newly reassorted H5N6 virus in November, and sporadic detections of both LPAI and HPAI outbreaks in wild birds.

Since our last look at the situation on Saturday, in South Korea: 2 More Duck Farms Hit By H5N6, the South Korean Ministry of Agriculture (MAFRA) has posted no fewer than 7 avian flu-related announcements (LIST). 

Not all of these announcements are of new outbreaks, as some are follow up lab reports on the subtype or pathogenicity of viruses detected.  But it gives you some idea of the volume of reports coming from that bird flu beleaguered country.

While I try to cover the highlights, for more comprehensive daily tracking of avian flu news out of South Korea you'll find FluTrackers' South Korea Tracking Forum an excellent resource.

FluTrackers provides similar avian flu tracking for many other regions of the world, including Egypt , Iraq, and Iran.

 The last 24 hour's avian flu headlines from South Korea include:

Jeonnam Goheung material Broiler Duck Farm, inspection results, highly pathogenic AI (H5N6 type) confirmed

Cheonan (Seocheon-style) Wild bird feces highly pathogenic AI (H5N6 type) confirmed

 Most of South Korea's outbreaks this fall and winter have been in the south of the country, but today a report indicates they are investing a possible outbreak at a large poultry farm in Pocheon, Gyeonggi Province.  Tests are pending.

Report of AI suspicious axis in laying hens in Pocheon, Gyeonggi-do

Registration date 2018-01-03 15:30:00

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Livestock and Livestock Food and Beverage (minister: Kim Young-rak) said that AI suspicious axis was reported at the 1.3 farms (breeding scale: 197,000) in Pocheon-gun, Gyeonggi-do.

As a result, they are controlling emergency access to the farms, sending local livestock poultry to the farms, and precautionary preventive measures for dismantling the farms, restriction of movement, and epidemiological surveillance by the avian influenza emergency action guidelines (AI SOP).

Not only is Gyeonggi Province the most populous province in South Korea (pop. 12.4 million) - if confirmed - this would bring this winter's bird flu outbreaks to within 70 miles of the Winter Olympic venues in Pyeongchang County, which get underway in just over a month. 

The good news is that neighboring China's avian flu season appears to be getting off to a late start this winter, and for now at least, H7N9 and the Asian H5N6 virus don't appear to pose an immediate threat to Korea or any of China's other neighbors.