wild places | wild happenings | wild news
make a difference for our wild places

home | links | search the site
  all articles latest | past | articles by topics | search wildnews
wild news on wildsingapore
  PlanetArk 2 Feb 06
Hong Kong Government Says Found More H5N1 Flu in Dead Birds
Story by John Ruwitch

HONG KONG - the Hong Kong government said on Wednesday that two dead birds - a wild crested myna and a domestic chicken smuggled in from mainland China - had tested positive for the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus.

Three people who came into contact with the fowl and ate another chicken that had also been around the smuggled bird have been put into isolation at a local hospital for tests. Preliminary results were expected on Thursday.

The chicken and myna double the number of dead birds Hong Kong government tests in the past two weeks has shown to have H5N1, a strain of bird flu that has killed 85 people worldwide since late 2003.

As a precaution, the government will cull all poultry within five kilometres (3.1 miles) of the smallholding where the chicken died, and also close the city's walk-in aviaries and a large nature reserve, said Thomas Sit, Acting Assistant Director of Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation.

It was unclear where the chicken caught the deadly disease, said Thomas Tsang, Consultant of the Centre for Health Protection of the Department of Health. "We do not know whether the chicken was infected in the mainland or whether it was infected in Hong Kong," he told a news conference. "We can't really draw any conclusions yet."

The bird was smuggled into Hong Kong on January 26 without symptoms and became ill on January 31. The typical incubation period for the disease in birds is two to 10 days, he said. The chicken was brought illegally into Hong Kong ahead of the Lunar New Year period.

Despite bird flu worries, the government increased the number of chickens shipped into Hong Kong from mainland China around the January 29 Lunar New Year. It fell ill and died about a half a kilometer (0.3 miles) from the border with China in an area where the government said on Sunday that an Oriental Magpie Robin also died of H5N1.

The dead crested myna was found in an urban playground, Tsang said.

The H5N1 virus currently cannot be transmitted between humans, but health experts warn that if it mutates it could spark a devastating global pandemic. Hong Kong farms have strict biosecurity measures in place that keep poultry from coming into contact with wild birds, but there are many small, unprotected backyard farms raising small flocks.

The Hong Kong government pledged to cull all the chickens in the territory in the event of two confirmed H5N1 cases in local poultry farms and suspend the local live poultry trade. Several Chinese provinces have reported H5N1 outbreaks, but not Guangdong, which is adjacent to Hong Kong.
links
Related articles on bird flu
about the site | email ria
  News articles are reproduced for non-profit educational purposes.
 

website©ria tan 2003 www.wildsingapore.com