South Korea steps up efforts to prevent bird flu

South Korean diseases control and prevention centres have warned against the bird flu across the country and are ramping up its efforts to prevent an outbreak of avian influenza (AI), a deadly disease that affects poultry and humans, the government said Thursday. The warning came in light of the high percentage of patients with flu to 4.8 people out of every thousand people in the first week of this month. South Korea resumed exporting fresh poultry products to Hong Kong in September as Hong Kong lifted its four-month import ban following the outbreak of low pathogenic avian influenza here. The disease led to the culling of millions of fowl in the past, while claiming hundreds of human lives worldwide “The government has asked all provincial and district governments to review and double their quarantine measures to help maintain the country’s AI-free status,” the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said. The move follows the confirmed outbreak of highly contagious high pathogenic avian influenza in Japan’s Hokkaido, the ministry added. An outbreak of low pathogenic AI was also confirmed last month in South Korea’s South Jeolla Province. As the first of its steps, the government will increase its number of sterilizations of key habitats for migratory birds from once to twice a week. “This is because the past three outbreaks of high pathogenic AI here in 2003, 2006 and 2008 were believed to have been caused by migratory birds,” the ministry said. The ministry is also advising farmers not to visit any poultry farms while overseas and for anyone who visits such places in other countries to stay away from poultry farms for at least five days.