You're reading: RKorea confirms bird flu cases as foot-and-mouth spreads

SEOUL, Dec 31 (Reuters) - South Korea, already battling a serious outbreak of food-and-mouth disease in livestock, on Friday confirmed an outbreak of bird flu at poultry farms.

Although the 2010 season effectively ended on Sunday for Rivers and the San Diego Chargers when they failed to make the playoffs for the first time in five years, the statistics clearly mark him out as among the elite in his position.

The San Diego standout lies second-best in the league this season with 4,397 passing yards and yet, for some reason, he has never captured the attention he deserves, especially on the East Coast.

His unique characteristics might help to explain why. With his laconic southern drawl and unwavering focus on doing whatever he can to help his team, both on and off the field, Alabama native Rivers has always come across as "one of the boys".

As humble as they come, he is quick to play down his own achievements and praise the role played by San Diego’s receivers and defense whenever talk shifts to his own remarkable quarterbacking exploits.

He is a natural-born leader but, in many ways, he runs counter to the image of the strutting, gung-ho quarterback — a position long recognised as the most glamorous and pressurised in American sport.

Deadly accurate with his arm from both short and long range, Rivers is perhaps most admired for his mental and physical toughness.

ASTONISHING RETURN

He will forever be remembered for his astonishing return from injury in 2007 when he tore his anterior cruciate ligament in a divisional game against the Indianapolis Colts, had arthroscopic surgery on the Monday and came back six days later to take every snap against the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship.

"When you have your knee operated on Monday night and play the following Sunday, it’s pretty amazing," San Diego head coach Norv Turner said of the six-foot five-inch (1.96-metre) Rivers, who has started every game for the Chargers since 2006.

"His mental toughness and his day-to-day toughness, that’s probably what our team respects the most about him."

All-Pro tight end Antonio Gates, who has forged a productive relationship with Rivers, values the quarterback’s leadership skills, energy and robust play.

"He just understands the game, man," said Gates, an eight-year league veteran. "Since the day I met him, you can just sense the leadership.

"Then you add in that physical toughness at the quarterback position. That energy that he brings to the table carries over to the rest of the guys on offense."

It is not just his own team mates who hold Rivers in high esteem.

New England’s Brady applauds the quarterback’s uncanny ability to win games in the fourth quarter and has never forgotten the nature of Rivers’s startling injury comeback three years ago.

"He’s extremely productive as a player and he’s very clutch," Brady said. "He always seems to come up with the plays at the end. He’s the type of guy you can’t ever ease up on.

"And I’ll never forget the toughness he showed playing on a torn ACL in 10-degree weather in the ’07 season championship game. He’s as tough as they come at quarterback."

The H5N1 avian influenza virus was detected in ducks in the city of Cheonan, South Chungcheong province, and in chickens in the city of Iksan in North Jeolla province, the agriculture ministry said in a statement.

Detection of the virus had prompted the authorities to cull affected poultry and quarantine commercial duck, chicken breeding farms in affected areas, the statement said.

The government raised the bird flu alert to caution from attention, while its foot-and-mouth disease alert remained at the highest level, the ministry said in two statements. So far, 540,000 pigs, cattle and other livestock have been culled.

South Korea has no human cases of the high-severity bird flu strain. It has had three outbreak of the virus at poultry farms in the past ten years, according to another ministry statement.

The nationwide outbreak of foot-and-mouth has prompted shutdowns of all livestock markets in South Korea, leading to a rise in the price of beef and pork and a possible rise in imports from the United States, Australia and New Zealand.
The outbreak of foot-and-mouth, which affects livestock including sheep, cows and pigs, originated in pigs in the city of Andong in North Gyeongsang province on Nov. 28. The government has been conducting vaccinations in badly affected areas.