|
Researchers have found that strains of bird flu found in Korea and Japan this year are almost genetically the same. The National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service said Wednesday that the genetic makeup of a strain of bird flu sampled from chickens in Gimje, South Jeolla Province was 99.7 percent identical to a sample from swans found in Japan's Akita prefecture. The finding gives grounds to analysis that the latest outbreak of avian influenza may have originated from migratory birds.
Kim Jae-hong, a professor of veterinary medicine at Seoul National University, said that viruses over 99 percent genetically the same are considered the same strain. This substantiates assumptions that migratory birds spread the virus on their way north in March and April after spending the winter in Southeast Asia.
Korea saw its first case of bird flu this year at a chicken farm in Gimje on April 1. In Japan, four swans were found to be infected with bird flu on April 21. This is not the first time that the same strain of bird flu has broken out in Korea and Japan; similar findings were confirmed when bird flu was reported in the two nations in 2003 and 2006.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
|
