South Korea Sunday declared itself a bird flu "clean zone" after three months without a confirmed case of the virus.
The declaration is in accordance with guidelines set by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and follows detailed tests conducted on 1,829 poultry farms throughout the country in May and June, the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said. The tests conducted on the farms, which raised a combined 200,000 birds, all came back negative for any trace of the avian influenza.
"Under OIE rules, we can declare South Korea 'clean' three months after the last quarantine measures have been implemented," Yonhap News quoted Kim Chang-seob, the ministry's chief veterinary officer, as saying.
Kim added that the country technically became a bird flu free country as of Friday.
He said the last culling, decontamination and burying of birds confirmed or suspected of having been infected with bird flu took place on May 15. A confirmed case of bird flu occurred three days earlier in the country's southeastern Gyeongsang region.
Kim added that with South Korea regaining its clean status, talks will be held with countries like Japan to resume exports of fresh poultry.
This year's outbreak of bid flu was the most serious in South Korea's history with 33 individual cases of the virulent H5N1 strain that can be transmitted to humans being confirmed. The first outbreak reported was reported on April 1 and resulted in a record 8.46 million birds being culled at a cost of around 264 billion won ($253.6 million).