N. Korea tightens quarantine efforts against bird flu with U.N. help

SEOUL, March 25 (Yonhap) -- North Korea has intensified quarantine efforts "more than ever" to prevent a possible bird flu outbreak and will closely work with the United Nations, its media said Wednesday.

North Korea acknowledged a bird flu outbreak at a major chicken farm in Pyongyang
in March 2005 and accepted international aid. Since then, not a single case of
the infectious disease has been detected, Pyongyang officials have asserted.
The North's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the country has completed an
in-depth survey of migrant birds that fly from Southeast Asia, the origin of the
infectious disease, as well as their routes and habitats. Measures were taken to
prevent the birds' access to livestock farms and villages, the report said,
without elaborating on what those measures were.
"The nationwide sanitary-quarantine project to prevent avian influenza has been
strengthened more than ever," the KCNA said.
North Korea "will continue to push forward this avian flu quarantine project with
tenacity and through close cooperation with the U.N. Food and Agriculture
Organization," it said.
Scientists also developed quick test kits, and residents in areas that could be
affected have received medical checkups, it said.
North Korea organized the State Emergency Quarantine Committee in 2008 to cope
with the bird flu pandemic that has frequently broken out in Asian countries,
including South Korea.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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