Likely H5N1 Spread to Fourth South Korean Farm
Recombinomics Commentary 07:21
April 7, 2008
혻 혻 The Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said that it has received a report from a chicken farm in Gobu, North Jeolla Province that around 700 chickens have died recently.
혻혻 The farm, located just 3 kilometers away from a duck farm in Jeongeup -- where an outbreak was reported late last week -- has been rearing a total of 18,000 chickens, it added. The ministry said that it is currently investigating whether the massive death of chickens is related to bird flu.
The above comments describe the likely spread of H5N1 to a fourth farm in South Korea (see satellite map). H5N1 has been confirmed at the chicken farm in Kimje, as described in the OIE report. It has also been confirmed at the duck farm in Jeongeup, which is 3 km from the chicken farm described above. H5N1 is also suspect at a duck farm in Sunchang, where the mortality rate is lower than the first duck farm, but ducks are usually resistant to H5N1, so the death of 500 ducks on a farm of 10,000 would not exclude H5N1.
The death of ducks on two farms suggests the H5N1 is the Uvs Lake version of the Qinghai strain, which was detected in the same area in late 2006. Similarly, this same area reported H5N1 infections in late 2003. That H5N1 was a precursor for the Qinghai strain.
Thus, the outbreaks in late 2003, late 2006, and the current outbreak were all reported in the same region, which lies on a migratory bird flyway that connects South Korea to Mongolia. It is likely that the current outbreak will also be linked to migratory birds returning to Mongolia and carrying the latest version of the Uvs Lake strain of H5N1.
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