South Korea tested fresh cases of suspected bird flu among ducks Tuesday in its battle against the highly contagious disease that has attacked the country's poultry sector and scared off consumers.

A South Korean merchant chops chicken at a market in Seoul on December 22, 2003. South Korea, grappling with a highly contagious strain of bird flu, agreed on measures to contain the outbreak and to limit its impact on the poultry industry.  [Reuters]

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The latest cases of avian influenza -- which in rare cases can be deadly to humans -- have been traced to duck breeding farms South Cholla province, home to half of South Korea's eight-million ducks.

Agriculture ministry authorities said about half of the target of one million chickens and ducks had been slaughtered and buried. The cull included thousands of chickens, who died instantly after contracting the flu.

"We will complete the slaughter today or tomorrow," Kim Dal-joong, senior agriculture ministry official, told reporters.

The farm ministry said in a statement that 13 suspected cases were being tested, including seven new overnight reports.

Recent cases found in ducks -- which show symptoms of the disease more slowly than chickens -- were traced to breeding centers which had shipped ducklings to farms before avian influenza was diagnosed, ministry officials said.

Since authorities confirmed the first bird flu among chickens at a farm 80 km (50 miles) southeast of Seoul, cases have been confirmed at eight poultry farms across South Korea.

CONSUMERS PANIC

Although experts say properly cooked poultry is harmless to humans, consumers have been shunning duck and chicken -- ignoring exhortations by government officials who have been eating poultry dishes on television almost every day.

"Like most bird flu types, this does not seem to affect humans," Kim Moon-shik, director general at National Institute of Health, told Reuters.

Kim said almost a thousand of people living in the affected areas have been given blood tests and monitored but no one has shown symptoms of the disease. In rare cases, bird flu is lethal to humans, with a virus incubation period of four to five days.

Authorities are waiting for U.S. test results to determine if the latest virus is genetically similar to the H5N1 variant of avian influenza that killed six people in Hong Kong in 1997 and 1998.

Since the bird flu outbreak, chicken and duck restaurants have suffered canceled reservations and empty seats. South Korea's modest poultry exports to Japan, Hong Kong and China have halted since the disease was confirmed last week.

Hit by falling demand, the country's biggest two poultry producers, Halim and Maniker, saw their share prices falter early this week to recover slowly Tuesday. Meanwhile, shares of fish processing firms have surged in anticipation of bullish demand.

Authorities were disinfecting chicken farms to protect the country 100 million chickens. Taking no chances, the government also sprayed zoos to protect rare birds from the avian flu.

Farm authorities told farmers to stay away from places where migratory birds gather because wild fowl are one suspected source of the disease.

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