another seven suspected sites have been identified

South Korea is battling to contain a big outbreak of the deadly bird flu virus which has meant that it has had to cull three million birds around the country. The Ministry of Health in South Korea said that this was the worst bird flu outbreak the country had suffered over the last four years.

Over the last two weeks there have been twelve individual cases of the H5N1 bird influenza virus being confirmed in flocks of poultry.  The disease is spreading very fast around South Korea which is extremely worrying for health officials in the country.

The government is taking this outbreak of the H5N1 virus extremely seriously and has even called in the army to help to contain the problem.  In one case 200 soldiers were sent to cull and bury infected birds in an area near to the capital city Seoul.

On top of the twelve established outbreaks of the bird flu virus another seven suspected sites have been identified and are likely to produce positive results when testing comes back from the laboratories.

The Health Ministry said that it wants to speed up the process by which the birds are culled and had sent out experts to find out how the disease was spreading so quickly around the country. There were suspicions that either migrating birds or the movement of workers around the country could be exacerbating the problem.

Like most Asian countries South Korea has had its fair share of bird flu outbreaks and has had to cull millions of bird since the first outbreak in 2003. 

The Health Ministry in South Korea has stocked up with the influenza medication Tamiflu and has detailed contingency plan to deal with an outbreak which actually spread to humans.  The World Health Organisation says that it is likely that the bird flu virus will mutate into a form which will make it extremely contagious and dangerous to humans.