South Korea's Agriculture Ministry confirmed Saturday that a new outbreak of bird flu there is the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of the virus.
Officials say test results showed chickens at a farm in Cheonan, 90 kilometers south of the capital, Seoul, were infected with the disease. South Korea will slaughter more than 270,000 poultry near the farm to try to keep the virus from spreading further.
The outbreak is South Korea's fifth since November.
Bird flu has killed more than 150 people worldwide since 2003.
Health Ministry officials in Indonesia and Egypt also announced new human fatalities from bird flu today.
Indonesian officials say a 19-year-old woman from West Java died Friday from the H5N1 strain of bird flu. In Egypt, a 27-year-old woman infected with bird flu died on Friday at a hospital in Cairo.
Some information for this report was provided by AP and Reuters.
