HK raises bird flu alertPosted: 21 December 2011 0222 hrs
HONG KONG: Hong Kong on
Tuesday raised its bird flu alert level to "serious" and announced it is to cull
17,000 chickens after three birds tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain of
the virus.
The city's health chief York Chow announced the measures after
a dead chicken at a wholesale market and two other wild birds tested positive
for the deadly H5N1 strain of the disease.
Authorities banned all live
poultry imports with immediate effect while they trace the source of the dead
chicken, whether it was imported or from local poultry farms.
Public
broadcaster RTHK reported that around 20 students from a girls' school, aged
between six and seven, have developed flu-like symptoms including fever, cough
and sore throat, but none has been taken to hospital.
Hong Kong was the
site of the world's first major outbreak of bird flu among humans in 1997, when
six people died from a mutated form of the virus, which is normally confined to
poultry. Millions of birds were then culled.
The cull at the poultry
wholesale market where the infected chicken was found will be held on Wednesday,
Chow told a late night press conference.
"With a heavy heart, I announce
that the dead chicken has been tested positive for the H5N1 strain of virus
after a routine check by the agriculture, fisheries and conservation department
today," Chow said.
"We are now raising the bird flu response level from
alert to serious."
Earlier on Tuesday, the agriculture authorities
confirmed an Oriental magpie robin found dead in a secondary school on Saturday
had tested positive for H5N1, the second such case in a week.
Another
secondary school was ordered to close for a day for disinfection last Friday
after a dead black-headed gull was found with the virus.
A school clerk,
who picked up the bird, and her son developed flu-like symptoms and were taken
to hospital but both were cleared later.
A 59-year-old woman tested
positive for bird flu in 2010 in Hong Kong's first human case of the illness
since 2003.
The city is particularly nervous about infectious diseases
after an outbreak of deadly respiratory disease SARS in 2003 killed 300 people
in Hong Kong and a further 500 worldwide. http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1172499/1/.html
hattip IRONOREHOPPER
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