Over 3,000 chickens culled in avian flu outbreak in northern Thailand

Agricultural officials in Thailand's northern province of Sukhothai and the northeastern province of Khon Kaen Wednesday destroyed about 3,600 chickens in an attempt to halt the latest outbreak of the avian flu virus.

In Sukhothai, nearly 3,000 chickens in Klong Yang, Pa Kum Ko, and Dong Khu sub-districts were buried. Farmers across the province also carried out mass slaughters of their poultry stock.

In Khon Kaen, 600 chickens of a farm in Ta Kra Serm sub-district were culled after over 10 percent of the chickens in the farm died which were suspected to have contracted avian flu, reported the Thai News Agency Thursday.

Provincial livestock officials met in Bangkok Wednesday to co-ordinate a common approach to dealing with the fresh outbreak of bird flu.

They agreed the immediate destruction of all chickens in any farms where some 10 percent of the fowls have died suspiciously, Director-General of the Department of Livestock Development, YukolLimlamthong was quoted as saying.

Blood tests of poultry will be conducted in every farm across the country from the end of July.

Any fowls found to have avian flu will be immediately culled, Yukol said.

The government will allocate a 60 million baht (1.5 million US dollars) budget for all the operations in this aspect over the next two years.

More than 10,000 chickens have been culled since the fresh outbreak of bird flu in nine provinces last week, the news agency said.

Source: Xinhua