South Korea, Japan step up poultry cull
Birdflu also found in two German farms
SEOUL: South Korea and Japan have ordered fresh culls of poultry stocks to contain outbreaks of avian flu, authorities in the two countries said.
The South Korean Agriculture Ministry said yesterday it had ordered the cull of an additional 2.4 million birds, taking the total number to a record 18.4 million since the first outbreak of avian flu was reported at a farm on Nov. 18.
It has called the outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N6 strain of bird flu more severe than the H5N8 strain that spread across the country in 2014 and 2015 before being brought under control.
The ministry said H5N8 was also discovered this month in the faeces of migratory birds but has not been seen at poultry farms.
In Japan, authorities on the northern island of Hokkaido said at the weekend that about 210,000 chickens were being culled after bird flu was discovered at a poultry farm in the town of Shimizu.
It is the fifth reported outbreak in the country since the end of November.
Nearly 800,000 chickens have been culled since then.
Meanwhile, about 30,000 turkeys and ducks were culled in Germany over the weekend after bird flu was found on two farms.
Some 21,600 turkeys were culled on a farm in Soest in North Rhine Westfalia after the virulent H5N8 strain was discovered and 9,500 ducks were culled on a farm in Moeser in Saxony-Anhalt, regional authorities said.
It was not clear whether the bird flu found in the second farm was H5N8 or the milder H5N1 strain.
The contagious H5N8 strain has been found in about 540 wild birds in Germany in recent weeks.
A series of European countries and Israel have found cases of H5N8 bird flu in the past few weeks and some ordered poultry flocks be kept indoors to prevent the disease spreading. – AFP/REUTERS