Macao to resume imports of poultry from China's interior
( 2001-06-13 19:11 ) (8 )

The Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) will soon resume the imports of live poultry from China's interior, about one month after Macao's entire poultry population were slaughtered to contain the spread of a bird flu virus.

However, the poultry should be transported to Macao only after passing stringent quarantine inspections, Jose Sales Marques, president of the Provisional Municipal Council of Macao, said at a press conference Wednesday.

He said that 2 percent of the poultry in each truck should be checked as samples, and the figure should be no less than 13 if the truck carries less than 500 chickens, ducks or geese.

The poultry should be carried in special coops to prevent mutual infection and slaughtered on time, while all the retail sales sites should be cleaned and sterilized before the poultry reach there, he added.

Macao destroyed roughly 60,000 poultry when the H5N1 virus was found in a few geese in mid-May. The SAR government allocated 5.5 million patacas (US$687,500) for destroying the poultry and compensating the workers and vendors for their losses.

No resident in Macao has been reportedly infected with the bird flu.