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Hong Kong on bird flu alert
06/03/2006 17:10 - (SA)
Hong Kong - Hong Kong on Monday stepped up checks at markets and poultry farms and banned bird imports from Guangdong after authorities confirmed the first human bird flu death in the neighbouring southern Chinese province.
The city's health secretary York Chow ordered checks intensified at local farms and wholesale and retail markets. A temperature check on incoming travellers at the border has also been reinforced, he said.
China confirmed late on Sunday that a man had died of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in Guangdong, the ninth fatality in mainland China but the first in the province.
Hong Kong immediately imposed the ban on imports of live poultry, day-old chicks and pet birds from the province. The supply would resume when it was confirmed there had been no other human infections and no outbreak on Guangdong's poultry farms, health authorities said.
Hong Kong imports roughly half its poultry overland from Guangdong - some 30 000 live chickens daily - while the remainder is produced on its own farms.
Officials in special meeting
Three Hong Kong health officials visited the provincial capital Guangzhou on Monday for a special meeting with their counterparts in Guangdong and Macau to discuss preventive measures and control of human infections.
The 32-year-old man, whose surname is Lao, died on Thursday in Guangzhou. He had made several visits to an agricultural market in the city and had spent a long time near an area where chickens were slaughtered, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Health Minister Gao Qiang said no further human cases of bird flu in Guangdong had been detected.
Hong Kong was the scene of the world's first reported major bird flu outbreak among humans in 1997, when six people died. The government slaughtered all the city's 1.5 million poultry to contain the outbreak.
Ban on ducks as pets
Last month the semi-autonomous Chinese territory passed a law banning the keeping of chickens and ducks as pets. It is also considering banning the sale of live chickens at wet markets.
Agriculture department staff have been searching homes in rural areas to clear Hong Kong of an estimated 9 000 chickens and 3 500 ducks kept in homes.
The chairman of the Hong Kong Poultry Wholesalers and Retailers Association, Steven Wai-cheun Wong, said Monday's measures were reasonable, even though the price of chickens would soar.
"I think it's acceptable and reasonable to suspend imports of poultry from China for a few weeks because this is done for people's health, but I hope this won't be dragged on for months", he said.
Prices of live poultry soared more than 30 percent on Monday and Wong warned they would rise further if the ban was extended.
More than 90 people, almost all in Asia, have died of the disease since 2003. Experts fear the virus could mutate into a strain capable of being transmitted among humans, leading to a global pandemic that could kill millions.
- AFP
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