S Korea plans to kill dogs & pigs over bird flu concerns

After confirming that the outbreak occurred at poultry farm last week was caused by the H5N1 strain, South Korea is now planning to kill a number of birds and other animals like pigs, dogs and cats in order to curb the spread of highly pathogenic form of bird flu.

The country’s agriculture ministry last weak had announced the possible virulent strain of the bird flu virus in Iksan, about 230 km south of Seoul. The ministry had suspected that the Iksan virus that has killed 6,000 chicken since last Sunday was related to the deadly H5NI strain that has killed 140 people worldwide.

Quarantine officials have already killed 125,000 chickens within a 500-metre (1,650-foot) radius of the avian influenza strain affected site in Iksan, in order to block the spread of the deadly virus.

Officials on Saturday ascertained that the outbreak was caused by the H5N1 virus and began slaughtering birds Sunday.

The South Korean authorities expect to cull 236,000 poultry and destroy some 6 million eggs by the end of the week. "We finished culling of all poultry at the infected farm on Saturday and began slaughtering other poultry near the farm from yesterday," said an official at the Agriculture ministry.

The country also intends to slaughter about 300 pigs and 600 dogs and an unspecified number of cats in the area by Thursday, the ministry said.

However, animal health experts have their own opinion about the slaughter of animals like dogs, pigs and cats due to the bird flu strain, which is really unusual in Asia where most countries concentrate solely on destroying poultry at the time of the bird flu outbreak. They suggested the step as “a bit of an extreme measure” as there was no definitive scientific evidence to suggest that cats or dogs could pass the virus to humans.

Country’s Center of Disease Control and Prevention has started examining the neighborhood villages’ farmers to check if the virus may have been passed to humans. No infections have been reported, so far.

Since its outbreak in 2003, bird flu has reportedly killed some 250 people worldwide. This is South Korea's first outbreak in three years of H5N1. The country had slaughtered 5.3 million birds and also cats and dogs during the last known outbreak of bird flu in 2003, in an attempt to prevent the disease from spreading.

A low-grade strain of bird flu has also struck South Korea last week. The viruses found in two different places, however, the Agriculture Ministry said were not the H5N1 strain. The strain killed 200 chickens in Pyeongtaek, 70 kilometers south of Seoul, and some 510 chickens in Yangpyeong, 55 kilometers east of the capital.

Besides culling, quarantine authorities have restricted the shipment of more than 5 million poultry from 221 farms within a 10-km radius of the affected farm. Japan has already suspended South Korean poultry imports.