China's fifth bird flu outbreak hits goose farm in Hunan province

[January 12, 2017]  BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Ministry of Agriculture said late on Wednesday that a bird flu outbreak, the country's fifth since last October, hit a goose farm in its southern Hunan province, killing 1,054 birds.

The outbreak in Yuanjiang, a city of more than 700,000 people, was confirmed as a case of the H5N6 strain of the virus, the ministry said in a statement on its website.

Local government culled a further 2,067 birds after the outbreak, which the Ministry of Agriculture said had been brought under control.

The case brings China's total poultry cull since October to more than 175,000 birds as South Korea and other neighboring countries battle their own major outbreaks. China has confirmed 106 cases of human H7N9 bird flu infections, and 20 deaths in total in December, the National Health and Family Planning Commision said on Wednesday.

Poultry trade has been suspended or restricted in several provinces following human infections.

The Ministry of Agriculture late last month said the recent outbreaks of bird flu have been handled in a "timely and effective" manner without spreading and have not affected chicken products or prices.

(Reporting by Hallie Gu and Josephine Mason; Editing by Kenneth Maxwell)

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