Hong Kong reports bird flu outbreak

HONG KONG - Three dead chickens tested positive for bird flu in Hong Kong, prompting the city to suspend poultry imports for 21 days and begin slaughtering 80,000 birds, an official said Tuesday.

"We feel that Hong Kong is facing a new alert for bird flu," said York Chow, secretary for food and health.

Chow said the chickens, found Monday at a farm with 60,000 birds, had the H5 virus and further tests were being done to see if they had the deadly H5N1 strain.

The farm and neighboring poultry operations were declared part of an infected zone, and about 80,000 birds in the area would be killed to prevent the spread of the disease, Chow said.

He added that the 21-day ban on poultry imports would last through the Christmas holiday, a time when chicken is an important dish in celebratory dinners.

Hong Kong's biggest bird flu outbreak was in 1997, when the H5N1 strain jumped to humans and killed six people. That prompted the government to slaughter all 1.5 million poultry in the territory.

In 2001, the government also carried out a massive poultry slaughter, killing 306,000 birds in wholesale and retail markets and 951,000 in local farms to eradicate an outbreak of bird flu. The city now has 600,000 birds, Chow said.

Kin Cheung / AP Health workers pack the dead chicken at a local farm in Hong Kong on Dec. 9, 2008.

At least 245 people have died of bird flu worldwide since 2003, according to the World Health Organization.

Hong Kong's government has been encouraging retailers to stop selling live birds, and the majority of shops have given up their licenses to sell live poultry. But eating fresh chicken is an important part of the culture and many shoppers still want freshly slaughtered birds.

Separately, Indonesia confirmed two new cases of human bird flu, the first officially reported since September in the country which remains the hardest-hit by the deadly virus, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.

A nine-year-old girl in Riau province developed symptoms on November 7 after poultry apparently died at her home, the WHO said in a statement. She was hospitalized five days later and discharged on November 22 after recovering.

A two-year-old girl from East Jakarta died on November 29 after developing symptoms on November 18, it said. "Investigations into the source of her infection suggest exposure at a live bird market."

The two latest cases took Indonesia's known number of bird flu infections to 139, including 113 deaths, since 2003, according to the United Nations health agency.

More on  bird flu | infections

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