South Korea, Hong Kong ban UK Poultry
Pakistan Times Wire Service

SEOUL: South Korea and Hong Kong said on Tuesday they had joined a growing list of countries banning British poultry due to the country's first outbreak of a deadly strain of bird flu in domestic poultry.

Russia and Japan have already banned imports, and a UK daily reported that South Africa and Indonesia had followed suit.

South Korea imported about $3 million in poultry products from Britain last year. It will either cull or return 3,645 ducks imported for breeding that it had in quarantine in the country, the agriculture ministry said.

Hong Kong, which imported 11,400 tones of British poultry and poultry products in the first 10 months of last year, announced late Monday it would suspend the imports with immediate effect, an official said.●