N.Korea confirms bird flu outbreak

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/03/27/nkorea.birdflu/index.html

(CNN) -- North Korean officials for the first time have acknowledged that avian flu has broken out in the repressive country.

"Hundreds of thousands" of chickens were burned before burial to prevent spread of the disease, which can spread to humans, the country's official media outlet Korean Central News Agency said on Sunday.

Sunday's report comes more than a week after South Korean media said bird flu had broken out in the North Korean capital last month. North Korean officials had previously said their country was free of the disease.

But it remained unclear if the strain of virus involved was H5N1, which has been known to jump from birds to humans.

Since late 2003, WHO has registered a total of 69 human cases of the H5N1 strain of bird flu. Forty-six of those were fatal -- 33 in Vietnam, 12 in Thailand and one in Cambodia.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/ats-ap_top15mar27,1,7394448.story?coll=sns-ap-topnews&ctrack=1&cset=true

The North already suffers from food shortages and relies on outside aid to feed its people, making the outbreak of bird flu a further blow to the isolated nation's food supply -- devastated by years of poor harvests due to natural disasters and outdated farming equipment and practices.
On Saturday, the United Nations' World Food Program launched a new appeal for food donations to North Korea, saying that a lack of supplies was forcing it to cut aid to children and the elderly. The WFP said it had already stopped giving vegetable oil to 900,000 elderly North Koreans and would reduce supplies to schoolchildren next week.

immunity systems due to poor nutrition. if this gets into their population it would be devastating.

but we won't hear the extent of the devastation. "It" has already been devasting and few people know and/or care.

It was only a matter of time. Chickens don't fly, but most of the other H5N1 hosts do.

There is a lot of genetic and political instability in North Korea giving rise to a major pandemic potential to this bird flu outbreak

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr=&tab=nn&ie=UTF-8&q=h5n1+pandemic+korea

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=9ab36f69a98ba3cc

Big News Network.com Sunday 27th March, 2005 (UPI)

North Korea's official news agency has confirmed thousands of chickens have been culled and the carcasses burned because of bird flu.

Two or three chicken factories, including one in Hadang, was recently hit by the avian influenza, said North's Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA.

It is the first known North Korean case of bird flu, which has stuck countries in Southeast Asia, the Korea Times in Seoul reported Sunday.

An official from North Korea said it has practiced emergency measures to prevent the spread of disease and that there has been no reported human case of bird flu in North Korea.


more...
for an already starving country this is terrible news!!!

that if this is the first "reported case" from North Korea, that there are several hundred more...at least.

They must be running out of medical supplies already. This is a plea for help, rather than announcement. (At least it's as close to a plea as Kim ever gets.)

They don't do "Dynamic Work" like this in North Korea for nothing.

http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm

Dynamic Work under Way in DPRK to Combat Bird Flu

Pyongyang, March 27 (KCNA) -- A dynamic work is now under way in different parts of the country to combat bird flu that plagues the world. The State Emergency Veterinary and Anti-Epizootic Committee has been organized to supervise the campaign.

According to members of the committee, bird flu has recently broken out at a few chicken farms including the Hadang Chicken Farm. Upon its outbreak on those farms the committee lost no time to take emergency measures and meticulously organized veterinary and anti-epizootic work to prevent its spread to other poultry farms.

Hundreds of thousands of infected chickens have been burned before their burial at the relevant chicken farms and officials, scientists and technicians of the institutions that specialize in the poultry industry are busy with researches to eradicate bird flu virus.

No one is reported to have been infected with this bird flu from among breeders of those farms. Officials of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Public Health and in other relevant fields have already set up mechanisms to prevent the spread of bird flu and are mobilizing broad masses for this campaign.

Especially from a military standpoint. North Korea is already desperte for food. Losing millions of tons of chicken is going to make things worse. Every time something like this happens its a roll of the dice on whether NK is going to "head for the border."

Not us. No, No, NOOOOO..OOO! Wake up and smell your roses this summer, then head south or north, east or west, across the great pond.