HK on alert after new cases of bird flu

(Shanghai Daily)
Updated: 2008-12-10 09:47

Hong Kong health authorities raised the city's avian flu alert level to "serious" Monday after the H5 virus killed dozens of chickens at a farm, prompting the precautionary slaughter of 80,000 birds.

Health workers pack dead chickens at a farm in Hong Kong yesterday. Three dead chickens tested positive for bird flu, prompting the city to suspend poultry imports for 21 days and to begin slaughtering 80,000 birds as a health precaution, an official said yesterday. [Shanghai Daily]

Laboratories in the city were trying to determine the precise identity of the virus. A leading expert said it could turn out to be the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain, which turns up regularly in flocks in Asia, parts of Europe and Africa.

"It's highly likely it's the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain because others don't kill chickens like this. But this has to be confirmed," said virologist Malik Peiris at the University of Hong Kong.

Although H5N1 is mainly a disease among birds, health officials fear it may mutate into a form that spreads easily among people.

If that happens, it could trigger a pandemic and kill millions. Even in its current hard-to-catch form, H5N1 has infected 389 people since 2003, killing 246.

Hong Kong Health Secretary York Chow said the affected farm was in the city's northern Yuen Long District, which reported the unusual deaths of 60 chickens on Monday.

"After a series of tests, we have confirmed this morning that the chickens died from the H5 virus," Chow told reporters Monday.

Workers clad in masks, white medical suits and black rubber gloves began the mass slaughter of some 80,000 birds at the farm Monday afternoon.

All chickens within a 3-kilometer radius of the farm are scheduled to be destroyed, along with birds at a wholesale market, Chow said.

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