Posted on 12/21/2003 9:00:59 AM PST by CathyRyan
Poultry farms affected in three provinces; no humans infected so far
Agriculture officials confirmed another case of deadly bird flu yesterday and investigated suspected cases far from the initial outbreak area, fanning concerns the virus has infected the poultry industry nationwide.
Meanwhile, Kim Moon-sik, chief of the National Institute of Health, said the virus does not appear to be contagious to humans since no symptoms have been reported in the normal incubation period.
To prevent the spread, officials are killing chickens and ducks at an increasing rate. More than 600,000 of the birds have died or have been designated for slaughter in the next few days.
The outbreak began at a farm in Eumseong, North Chungcheong Province, where more than 20,000 chickens died between Dec. 5 and Dec. 12. A 3-kilometer radius around the farm was quarantined, but the highly contagious flu has eluded containment.
Yesterday, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said the virus had stricken a farm containing 8,000 ducks about 7 kilometers from Eumseong and that all the birds would be destroyed. On Saturday, agriculture officials said the flu had infected a duck hatchery in Cheonan, South Chungcheong Province, about 24 kilometers from Eumseong.
The hatchery supplies 22 of the nation's 55 duck-breeding farms, raising the possibility that a transfer of the virus may have occurred already throughout Korea, officials said.
Among the sites under investigation are a chicken hatchery in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, about 170 kilometers from Eumseong, and a duck farm in Naju, South Jeolla Province, about 220 kilometers away.
Eight hundred chickens out of 10,250 have died at the Gyeongju hatchery, and 430 ducks out of nearly 15,000 have died at the Naju farm.
Other suspected duck farms are in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, near the initial outbreak, and in Anseong, south of Seoul.
Epidemiological studies of 487 people from the region to report the first outbreak showed that no one had contracted the disease yet, said Kim, at a ministerial-level emergency meeting yesterday presided over by the Prime Minister Goh Gun yesterday.
A form of the H5N1 virus killed six people in Hong Kong in 1997. Two human cases occurred last year in the territory, of which one was fatal.
"The incubation period of the avian virus ranged from four to five days according to previous cases reported in Hong Kong. Considering that more than 10 days have passed since Dec. 10, the first day of outbreak, the flu here does not seem contagious to humans," Kim said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta is analyzing blood samples of 156 people who have come into contact with the infected fowl. The testing may take a month.
So far, seven poultry farms, all in Chungcheong Province, have been identified to have infected with the epidemic. About 20,000 farms raise a total of 360,000 poultry including ducks and chickens across the province.
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