A highly pathogenic strain of bird flu has been confirmed at poultry farms in the cities of Cheonan and Asan in South Chungcheong Province.
 
The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said Tuesday that samples from a duck farm in Dongnam district in Cheonan and a hatchery in Asan tested positive for the H5N6 strain of avian influenza(AI).
 
With the confirmation, the ministry said it is culling more than four-thousand ducks and 150-thousand egg-laying hens in the area.
 
The ministry is also imposing emergency quarantine measures, including controlling access and restricting traffic at the affected farms.
 
As of Monday at midnight, roughly four-point-four million birds had been culled as a bird flu precaution.