BEIJING // South Korea yesterday confirmed its first outbreak of bird flu for more than two years, as the country continues to grapple with both foot-and-mouth disease and swine flu.
Already about 120,000 chickens and ducks have been slaughtered since bird flu was detected on Wednesday, according to the country's ministry for food, agriculture, forestry and fisheries.
The news comes less than two months after Hong Kong announced a woman had developed the often fatal condition after visiting mainland China.
The H5N1 bird flu strain was detected at a duck farm in Cheonan in the west of South Korea and at a chicken farm in Iksan further south. Three cases have also been detected in migratory birds, which have been blamed for this week's outbreaks.
Both affected areas have been put under quarantine, with birds in neighbouring farms also killed, while farms further afield have been instructed to install netting to prevent migratory birds from entering.
Yoo Man-keun, an official in Cheonan, said it was difficult to keep away migratory birds that arrive in the country in search of food.
"We've put up scarecrows to scare them away, but all to no avail," he told journalists.
Previous outbreaks of bird flu in the country forced the slaughter of vast numbers of birds, with more than eight million killed in the last outbreak, in April 2008, 2.8 million in 2006/07 and 5.3 million in 2003/04.
Several countries have been hit by bird flu this year, most seriously Egypt where a number of people died. Globally, bird flu has caused more than 300 deaths in humans since 2003, although the virus that causes the condition has not mutated into a form that allows it to spread easily person-to-person.
This week's outbreak piles pressure on a country reeling over the past month with the spread of foot-and-mouth disease, a fatal viral condition that affects cloven-hoofed farm animals but rarely causes illness in humans.
So far 580,000 cattle and pigs have been slaughtered and more than 300,000 vaccinated at 12,000 farms in an effort to contain the disease, although yesterday three more outbreaks were confirmed, bringing the total to more than 70. The government yesterday estimated the cost of the outbreak at more than 520 billion won (Dh1.70bn).
Officials confirmed on Thursday that one man had died from swine flu, caused by the H1N1 virus, the first fatality from the outbreak, which was identified on December 14 and has spread to more than a dozen farms. Swine flu killed more than 100 people in the country in 2009.
dbardsley@thenational.ae
* With additional reporting from Agence France-Presse
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Mamo
Year it started: 2019 Founders: Imad Gharazeddine, Asim Janjua
Based: Dubai, UAE
Number of employees: 28
Sector: Financial services
Investment: $9.5m
Funding stage: Pre-Series A Investors: Global Ventures, GFC, 4DX Ventures, AlRajhi Partners, Olive Tree Capital, and prominent Silicon Valley investors.
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Learn more about Qasr Al Hosn
In 2013, The National's History Project went beyond the walls to see what life was like living in Abu Dhabi's fabled fort:
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
What are the influencer academy modules?
- Mastery of audio-visual content creation.
- Cinematography, shots and movement.
- All aspects of post-production.
- Emerging technologies and VFX with AI and CGI.
- Understanding of marketing objectives and audience engagement.
- Tourism industry knowledge.
- Professional ethics.
Start-up hopes to end Japan's love affair with cash
Across most of Asia, people pay for taxi rides, restaurant meals and merchandise with smartphone-readable barcodes — except in Japan, where cash still rules. Now, as the country’s biggest web companies race to dominate the payments market, one Tokyo-based startup says it has a fighting chance to win with its QR app.
Origami had a head start when it introduced a QR-code payment service in late 2015 and has since signed up fast-food chain KFC, Tokyo’s largest cab company Nihon Kotsu and convenience store operator Lawson. The company raised $66 million in September to expand nationwide and plans to more than double its staff of about 100 employees, says founder Yoshiki Yasui.
Origami is betting that stores, which until now relied on direct mail and email newsletters, will pay for the ability to reach customers on their smartphones. For example, a hair salon using Origami’s payment app would be able to send a message to past customers with a coupon for their next haircut.
Quick Response codes, the dotted squares that can be read by smartphone cameras, were invented in the 1990s by a unit of Toyota Motor to track automotive parts. But when the Japanese pioneered digital payments almost two decades ago with contactless cards for train fares, they chose the so-called near-field communications technology. The high cost of rolling out NFC payments, convenient ATMs and a culture where lost wallets are often returned have all been cited as reasons why cash remains king in the archipelago. In China, however, QR codes dominate.
Cashless payments, which includes credit cards, accounted for just 20 per cent of total consumer spending in Japan during 2016, compared with 60 per cent in China and 89 per cent in South Korea, according to a report by the Bank of Japan.