'We are very dissatisfied. Why did it take so long to do the tests? If the government had found that markets had problems a bit earlier, retailers could have stopped buying chicken and avoided losses,' he said.

The government culled about 2,700 chickens at Po On Road market in Sham Shui Po on Saturday after the H5N1 virus was detected in poultry there.

An immediate 21-day ban on live poultry imports from the mainland and on supplies from local chicken farms was imposed.

But retailers could still buy chicken from the Cheung Sha Wan Temporary Wholesale Poultry Market.

Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat-ngok said yesterday that testing methods would be reviewed to increase efficiency and accuracy.

Democratic Party legislator Fred Li Wah-ming also said the government should have suspended trading at the Cheung Sha Wan market from Saturday and held all live chickens there until tests had been completed.

'No retailers would have bought chickens and consumers would not have to be scared,' he said.

Mr Wong said: 'For the sake of public health, it is inevitable all live chickens will be culled. Shoppers will not buy it if they lose confidence.'

But he said culling all live chickens at retail shops would affect many livelihoods.

'Our loss is tremendous - over HK$100 million in total. It affects all local live chicken farmers, retailers, wholesalers and transport workers,' Mr Wong said, adding that about 3,000 people were working in the trade.

He urged the government to compensate traders for their losses. Mr Wong said each live chicken stall owner at government wet markets should be given one-off compensation of HK$30,000, while retailers elsewhere should be paid HK$60,000.

Wholesalers should get HK$48,000, while drivers transporting live chickens should be given HK$24,000.

Deputy director of food and environmental hygiene Alice Lau Yim said staff had met some retailers to discuss compensation and the present proposal was HK$30 for each chicken culled.

Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong legislator Wong Yung-kan, who represents the agriculture and fisheries sector, said the government should step up efforts to combat live chicken smuggling to ensure the public's health was protected.

Yesterday, more than 10 local chicken farmers and Wong Yung-kan met the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department's farming boss, Liu Kwei-kin, to urge the government to resume supplies of live chicken from Hong Kong poultry farms as no H5N1 virus had been found in samples taken from them.

Poultry offer

People involved in the live poultry trade are demanding tens of thousands of dollars in compensation. For each culled chicken, the government is offering (in HK dollars) $30