South Korea says finds ducks infected with bird flu

SEOUL – South Korea has detected bird flu in ducks on a poultry farm near Seoul, an agriculture ministry official told Reuters on Monday, the first discovery in four months and a month after the country regained its bird flu-free status.

The case involved a strain known as H5N8, the same type of influenza that occurred last November.

All 11,604 ducks at the infected farm in the city of Icheon, 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of Seoul have been slaughtered, the official said.

South Korea had resumed poultry meat exports to Hong Kong for the first time in nearly two years after it was declared an Avian Influenza-free nation, the agriculture ministry said on March 13.

The bird flu discovery comes amid ongoing concerns about food safety in South Korea, where an outbreak of foot and mouth disease was discovered in pigs in January.

(Reporting by Rebecca Jang; Editing by Tony Munroe and Richard Pullin)