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South Korea, whose woes with the H5N1 virus began anew last November after several years of apparent quiescence, will begin their fifth major culling operation in the past 2 months.
South Korea to cull birds in flu scare
South Korea is to cull over 270,000 birds after an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus.
Officials from the Agriculture Ministry confirmed that they will begin the culling in Cheonan, south of the capital Seoul. A quarantine zone has been set up around the area, and the future of another 386,000 birds potentially infected is yet to be decided.
The quarantine zone affects 90 farms and over two million chickens in a six mile radius around the outbreak site.
"We plan to start slaughtering 273,000 poultry within a 500-metre radius of the outbreak site and destroying eggs as early as Saturday evenings," said the ministry.
The South Koreans have take the bird flu threat very seriously and have been very aggressive in their culling and surveillance operations. In the past they have not limited their culling to just poultry, but have included a variety of other livestock, and on occasion dogs and cats, in the affected area.
The Koreans are also particularly good at follow up testing of cullers, and have detected antibodies to the virus in several persons involved in the culling operations. Reportedly, these cullers were receiving prophylactic Tamiflu at the time of their exposure.
