(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-11-24 14:38

Seoul -- South Korea's first bird flu outbreak in eight months forced the slaughter of thousands of ducks in the country's south Saturday, although the deadly H5N1 virus was not involved, the government said.

The virus that caused the latest outbreak was a "low pathogenic" H7 strain that has not been known to spread to humans, said an official at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.

Quarantine workers slaughtered about 17,000 ducks at the farm in Gwangju, about 330 kilometers (205 miles) southwest of the capital, Seoul, the official said on condition of anonymity, citing office policy.

The outbreak, South Korea's first since March, was confirmed on Friday, the ministry official said.

Seven outbreaks of the lethal H5N1 virus hit poultry farms across South Korea between November 2006 and March this year, resulting in the slaughter of about 2.8 million birds.

The country declared itself free of bird flu in June after reporting no new outbreaks for three months. The latest outbreak does not affect South Korea's bird flu-free status because it involves a "low pathogenic" virus, the ministry official said.

Since H5N1 re-emerged in 2003, it has led to the death or slaughter of hundreds of millions of birds and has killed 206 people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.