New Strain Of Bird Flu Surfaces In North Korea - Reuters

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BEIJING - "A strain of bird flu previously undetected in Asia has been found in North Korea, which has culled thousands of chickens to contain the outbreak, a top UN expert said on Tuesday.

The secretive state, struggling with widespread famine after natural disasters and bad harvests in the 1990s, has so far culled 219,000 chickens and clamped down on bird movements. Hans Wagner, a senior official with the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), told Reuters Television in Beijing after a week-long visit to North Korea the strain was H7.

"We have a new situation, because H7 has so far not occurred in Asia," he said. "We don't know where the virus came from, so we have to trace back ... how did the virus come into the farms," said Wagner, who has played a prominent role in Asia's battle against the deadly H5N1 virus.

H5N1 has killed 49 people since late 2003, 16 since the disease erupted anew in December, and has proved extremely difficult to stamp out in Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia."

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