Cases of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (AI) have been confirmed at a chicken farm in Goyang City in Gyeonggi Province.

The city confirmed on Saturday evening that the cases detected in a preliminary test earlier that day at the egg-laying chicken farm in western Ilsan were the highly pathogenic H5 strain.

The city decided to cull 78-thousand chickens at the farm by Sunday morning as a preventive measure.

About 900 other chickens at 31 poultry farms in a radius of three kilometers from the Ilsan farm will also be culled by Monday.

The city also issued a standstill order on poultry farms with a radius of ten kilometers from the farm to prevent the spread of the virus.