Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Strict Measures Taken to Prevent Bird Flu

Korean Central News Agency of DPRK via Korea News Service (KNS)

    Pyongyang, November 27 (KCNA) -- Strict state measures are being taken in the DPRK to prevent bird flu as the world is now plagued with its rapid spread and fatal consequences. The State Emergency Veterinary and Anti-epizootic Committee has been reinforced with officials and specialists of the Cabinet, the Ministry of Agriculture and other relevant fields. There is now a well-organized anti-epizootic system in different provinces, cities and counties. The committee is providing a coordinated guidance over the preventive work across the country on the basis of a series of measures recently taken in this respect.
    The National Epizootic Prevention Centre under the ministry is making a comprehensive analysis of the data on the outbreak and epidemiology of the bird flu worldwide and the latest information available from international organizations and sending its results to different units. Meanwhile, information service regarding bird flu is brisk among working people in different provinces, cities and counties to help them know well about its danger, course of infection and take necessary preventive measures against it.
    Chicken farms including those in Mangyongdae, Sopho and Hadang under the Pyongyang Poultry Guidance Bureau have taken strict measures to examine the workers there, while thoroughly checking and inoculating poultry against bird flu.
    Big efforts are being made in different parts of the country to watch the movement of seasonal birds, the main spreader of virus of bird flu. The committee has obtained correct information about the movement of seasonal birds and its period, their main temporary habitats and their places for wintering in close touch with zoologists and, on this basis, built up hundreds of watch posts, taking the country as a whole, in order to prevent wild and seasonal birds from approaching chickens, ducks and geese and other poultry raised at all units and institutions, enterprises, farms and households in the border areas.
    It instructed all of them to inform it of any abnormal symptom found in birds and poultry in time and keep them in quarantine. Meanwhile, a campaign is now under way to intensify the researches into vaccine against virus of bird flu, medicine for treating it and reagent to diagnose the case and disinfection. Measures are being taken to improve the quality of preventive medicine.
    Strict quarantine is now underway at ports, airports and border transit points to prevent bird flu.