The DPRK official news agency Monday confirmed that the communist regime recently slaughtered thousands of chickens after an outbreak of bird flu at chicken farms in Pyongyang.

It is the first known case of bird flu, which has wreaked havoc in Southeast Asia and China, to strike DPRK.

"Two or three chicken factories, including one in Hadang, was recently hit by the avian influenza," the DPRK Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted an anti-epidemic council official as saying.

The Hadang factory is one of five constructed in December 2002 that breeds and process chickens in Pyongyang, the Unification Ministry said.

The official added that the DPRK has practiced emergency measures to prevent the disease from spreading to other regions. The KCNA said there has been no reported human case of bird flu in DPRK.

"We've already cremated tens of thousands of chickens," the official said. "Experts and scientists are also cooperating to eradicate the virus."

Rumors were circulating early this month about an outbreak of avian influenza in DPRK, making a trader in Seoul indefinitely delay its plan to sell DPRK chicken in South Korea.

After receiving news of the unconfirmed outbreak, Porky Trading Korea, the firm in Seoul, asked its DPRK counterparts three weeks ago to delay chicken shipments.

The trader was ready to send a ship to the DPRK port of Nampo to ship 40 tons of DPRK chicken. The company had planned to buy 2,000 tons of DPRK chicken this year.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in Seoul said that the outbreak of bird influenza in Pyongyang would have no impact on South Korea because no DPRK chicken or duck had been bought by South Korea.

DPRK state media have recently stressed campaigns against the outbreak of bird flu and set up quarantines at airports, sea ports and border areas, while categorically assuring that the country is completely free from the epidemic.

Source: Agencies