- South Korea has confirmed its first cases of bird flu
in poultry for six weeks.
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- The Agriculture Ministry said that the latest infections
were found on a farm in Yangju just north of Seoul.
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- Twenty thousand chickens on the farm were immediately
culled and another 400,000 birds were destroyed within a three kilometre
radius.
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- Bird flu has hit several Asian countries in recent months
and killed 24 people in Thailand and Vietnam.
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- Infection
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- So far, South Korea has had 19 farms hit by the disease
but the outbreak discovered at the weekend was the first identified since
5 February, dashing hopes that the country had brought the disease under
control.
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- South Korea has culled more than three million poultry
since the virus was detected first on 15 December.
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- Experts have said the spread of the virus could be attributed
to wild birds.
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- The Agriculture Ministry said that a dead magpie in Yangsan,
420km south of Seoul, was found to be infected with the virus at the weekend.
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- There has been no case of human infection in South Korea.
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- The health authorities say the strain is a weaker variant
of the H5N1 virus that has killed people in Vietnam and Thailand.
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- © BBC MMIV
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- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/3556283.stm
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