South Korea Reports H5N8 Bird Flu Outbreaks
SOUTH KOREA - The South Korean veterinary authorities have reported 12 outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) across farms in various regions of the country.
3 March 2014
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According to follow-up report no. 3 sent to the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) on 28 February, the affected population consists of breeding ducks and chickens, ducks for meat and egg layers.
A total of 321,280 birds were found susceptible, out of which 31,284 cases were reported. A total of 12,067 poultry birds were found dead and 309,213 were destroyed.
According to the OIE, the H5N8 subtype of viruses have a series of basic amino acid at the hemagglutinin (HA) cleavage site such as LREKRRKR/GLF or LRERRRKR/GLF, which means highly pathogenic to chickens.
The intravenous pathogenic index was 3.0, which means highly pathogenic to chickens. The Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency (QIA) injected intravenously 0.1ml of the 1/10 diluted virus into each of ten 6-week-old SPF chickens. All birds were died within 24 hours.
The QIA submitted the genetic information to GenBank and submitted manuscript to scientific society (Emerging Infectious Disease, MS#EID-14-0233) about the brief situation of outbreaks and the genetic information on 27 January 2014.
The source of the outbreak remains inconclusive.
