South Korea to kill cats, dogs over bird flu fears
Pastor Dale Morgan
South Korea to kill cats, dogs over bird flu fears*
Posted 11/27/2006 10:27 AM ET
It's not easy to catch. Only 256 people in the world have had it.
But the bird flu, known as H5N1, is one of the most lethal viruses
known, killing more than half of the humans it has infected.
Despite draconian eradication efforts, including the slaughter of
millions of poultry in Asia and Europe, the virus has spread.
Indonesia and Vietnam have borne the brunt. Vietnam holds the record for
human cases with 93 illnesses, 42 of them fatal, but hasn't had a case
this year. The virus rages in Indonesia, which has had 72 human cases,
including 55 deaths.
USA TODAY's Anita Manning and Elizabeth Weise report on what is being
done to stop this disease in what could be ground zero for the next
pandemic.
SEOUL (AP) — South Korea plans to kill cats and dogs to try to prevent
the spread of bird flu after an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus at a
chicken farm last week, officials said Monday.
Animal health experts, however, suggested it was "a bit of an extreme
measure" when there was no scientific evidence to suggest that cats or
dogs could pass the virus to humans.
Quarantine officials have already killed 125,000 chickens within a
1,650-foot radius of the outbreak site in Iksan, about 155 miles south
of Seoul, the Agriculture Ministry said. Officials began slaughtering
poultry on Sunday, a day after they confirmed that the outbreak was
caused by the H5N1 strain.
They plan to slaughter a total of 236,000 poultry, as well as other
animals, including pigs, and all dogs and cats in the area by Thursday,
the ministry said. About 6 million eggs also will be destroyed, it said.
The ministry did not say how many dogs, cats and other animals would be
killed.
Slaughtering cats and dogs near an area infected with bird flu would be
highly unusual in Asia. Indonesia has killed pigs in the past, but most
countries concentrate solely on destroying poultry.
However, it would not be the first time for South Korea to kill cats and
dogs due bird flu concerns. An official at the Agriculture Ministry said
South Korea slaughtered cats and dogs along with 5.3 million birds
during the last outbreak of bird flu in 2003.
The official declined to be named, saying he was not authorized to talk
to media.
Dogs specially bred for eating are slaughtered for consumption in South
Korea, where many people enjoy dog meat as a delicacy.
Another ministry official, Kim Chang-sup, insisted killing cats and dogs
to curtail the spread of bird flu was not unusual.
"Other countries do it. They just don't talk about it," Kim said, adding
that all mammals are potentially subject to the virus. He declined
further comment.
But animal experts disputed the validity of killing cats and dogs.
"It's highly unusual, and it's not a science-based decision," said Peter
Roeder, a Rome-based animal health expert with the U.N.'s Food and
Agricultural Organization or FAO, who published research about cats and
bird flu earlier this year in the journal Nature. "We've got absolutely
no reason to believe they're important," he told The Associated Press.
Dr. Jeff Gilbert, an animal health expert at the FAO in Vietnam,
described South Korea's plan as "a bit of an extreme measure."
He said dogs and cats occasionally become infected, but pose little risk
to people.
Tigers and snow leopards in a Thailand zoo died in 2003 and 2004 after
being fed infected chicken carcasses. Earlier this year, a few domestic
cats tested positive for the virus in Europe.
The H5N1 virus began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in late 2003 and has
killed at least 153 people worldwide.
So far, the disease remains hard for people to catch, and most human
cases have been traced to contact with infected birds. But experts fear
it will mutate into a form that is easily spread among people, possibly
creating a pandemic that could kill millions.