Massive chicken cull amid bird flu outbreak

More than 370,000 chickens have been culled in China's eastern province of Jiangsu after an outbreak of the H5N1 strain of bird flu. The outbreak is thought to be the first in mainland China since June. China's Ministry of Agriculture said it received notification that the H5N1 virus had been found in two areas of Jiangsu on Monday. Birds have been slaughtered in the surrounding area, farms quarantined and disinfected, and the transport of fowl banned. No information has been released about the scale of the outbreak - how many birds were found to be carrying the H5N1 strain of the virus and how many of them died. Officials say they think migrating birds might have been the source of the disease.