South Korea decided Saturday to provisionally ban the import of US-grown chickens and ducks and their processed products after bird flu was found in the US state of Delaware.

The South Korean Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said in a press statement that it is currently seeking an official confirmation of the report that a strain of avian influenza, more commonly known as bird flu, was found in a noncommercial flock in Delaware.

If the H7 outbreak in the United States is confirmed as highly infectious bird flu, South Korea will formally announce imports ban on US poultry, the ministry said.

The H7 strain discovered in a farm in Delaware's southern Kent County, is different from the H5N1 bird flu virus that is affecting human in Asia and has no risks to human health, the Delaware State News reported, quoting state Secretary of Agriculture Michael Scuse as saying.

Scuse told the newspaper that as a prevention, more than 12,000chickens will be destroyed at the quarantined farm by carbon dioxide poisoning, and farms within two miles (3.2 kilometers) of the infected birds will be tested within the next week.

The discovery of the infected birds occurred Thursday when the owner of the flock notified his drug company that there might be a problem.

Scuse said his agency was working to determine the origins of the infection, but he would not identify the owner of the chickens or their location.

While the quarantined farm is a noncommercial operation, there are 12 commercial farms within the two-mile testing limit with hundreds of thousands of chickens, he said.

The noncommercial grower had been selling his chickens at live-bird auctions in New York City, but Scuse said whether the farmer sold any infected birds at the auctions is unclear.

"In checking with the New York Department of Agriculture, officials there have been seeing cases of H7 infections in their live bird market poultry," he said. "We have our theories."

Bird flu is an airborne respiratory virus that spreads easily among chickens through nasal and eye secretions as well as manure. According to Scuse, the H7 strain is a highly virulent airborne form of the disease.

(Xinhua News Agency February 8, 2004)