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Monday March 28, 10:16
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South Korea to help North Korea in bird flue strike
(by Tash Koon)
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South Korea is likely to aid the North Korea fight with bird flue spreading, reported Korean new agencies on Monday. It was also said that South Korean health and agriculture officials will organize a meeting in order to decode which measures should be taken against the outbreak.
"We see the North’s confirmation of an outbreak of bird influenza via the KCNA as its intention to actively accept international aid," a South Korean Unification Ministry official said, according to the Yonhap news agency.
"North Korea, plagued by food shortages, has struggled to modernise and build facilities for the breeding and processing of chicken, a main source of animal protein," Kwon Tae-jin, an expert on North Korean agriculture based in Seoul, told the South Korean Munhwa Ilbo newspaper.
"Human bird flu infection has the danger of breaking out if bird flu among poultry continues to occur and spread in provinces where the outbreaks were not properly treated," the North Korean ministry said.
The type of the virus is not still specified yet. The similar one is named H5N1, known to jump from birds to humans, has killed almost 50 people since its resurgence in South East Asia in December 2003.
Experts fear the H5N1 virus could eventually combine with human flu and threaten a deadly pandemic.
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