On Monday, an agriculture ministry official told Reuters that South Korea has found bird flu in ducks on a poultry farm, 80 kilometers east of Seoul. It has come as the first discovery in four months and has been detected 30 days after the nation gained its bird flu-free status back.

The case included a strain called H5N8, which is the same kind of influenza that occurred in November 2015. The officials said that all 11,604 ducks present at the infected farm in the city of Icheon have been killed.

Sputnik News reported that the virus in avian influenza aka bird flu was detected for the first time in 1997 when it affected many people. Among the people who contracted the flu, six lost their lives. The respiratory disease can spread to humans from the bird species.

The H7N7 Influenza, a virus subtype can harm various animal species, has been mainly hitting birds. It may hit humans also, though only through coming in close contact with the infected animals.

The bird flu is an influenza virus type that is carried by birds, but could infect some mammal species. The virus was identified in the early 1900s in Italy and is now present worldwide. Emerged in 1997, the H5N1-type strain of AI was most probably the source of a future influenza pandemic.

On March 13, the agriculture ministry said that South Korea had recommenced poultry meat exports to Hong Kong first time ever in couple of years after it was announced as an Avian Influenza-free nation.

The discovery of bird flu has come in the middle of ongoing tension regarding food safety in South Korea, where a foot and mouth disease outbreak was found in pigs in January.