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Ella Lee

Mary Ann

Mary Ann Benitez

Checks on chicken farms to be stepped up after H5N1 is found in a native robin

Inspections of Hong Kong's 145 chicken farms are being  stepped up after the return of H5N1 to the city. But government officials say the discovery  is no reason to fear an outbreak of the deadly virus is any nearer.

The virus was found in tests on an oriental magpie robin discovered dead in a village in Tai Po 10 days ago. The species is native to Hong Kong and large parts of South and East Asia.

'It is only one dead wild bird so there is no cause for alarm,' said Thomas Sit Hon-chung, acting assistant director of the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department.

Checks on chicken farms will be stepped up in the next 30 days, with the most stringent inspections reserved for  eight farms within a 5km radius of Kam Shan Tsuen, where the bird  was found.

The infection was announced yesterday.  It was the first time a robin had been found infected.

The discovery - at a peak time for live chicken sales ahead of the  Lunar New Year - came a year  after a  heron was found dead at Lok Ma Chau with H5N1.  Three wild birds were found with the virus in 2004, two in 2003 and three in 2002.

Medical legislator Kwok Ka-ki called for an immediate ban on chickens at wet markets, saying it showed H5N1 was 'on our doorstep'. But Dr Sit insisted there was no need for alarm.  Inspections and testing at chicken farms had not found any abnormal deaths nor 'abnormal signs of avian flu'.

'But because this is the winter season we will step up the surveillance,' he said.

The Mai Po bird sanctuary is also being monitored.

Bird flu detective Guan Yi, of the University of Hong Kong's department of microbiology, said it was not necessary to shut down wet markets at this time.

Professor Guan said the bird had either been infected by domestic poultry  or by  migratory birds.

University of Hong Kong microbiologist Ho Pak-leung said: 'As it is a native bird, the government has to investigate how the bird got infected by looking into its lifestyle, such as its habits and the kinds of migratory birds it likes to mix with.'

Dr Sit defended the nine-day delay in announcing the robin's infection, saying a series of tests was needed to confirm H5N1.

A quick test was not 'a golden test and will not apply in this kind of case'.

Dr Kwok said: 'The wet markets are the contact point between humans and live chickens. The death means bird flu is on our doorstep and we must act fast.

'It is the most dangerous time of the year and if the chicken traders are willing to take an active step to stop sales now, they can actually save their own trade. Otherwise, if there is a human case,  the chicken breeding and trading industry will die.'

H5N1 bird flu first jumped the species barrier in Hong Kong in 1997, infecting 18 people, six of whom died.

Three subsequent outbreaks occurred in poultry, but only one other death - that of a man returning from a visit to Fujian  in 2003.

Since 1997, the city has  implemented stringent control measures at markets and farms on poultry imported from the mainland.

H5N1  has affected 148 people since late 2003, killing 82 of them,  on the mainland and in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia and Turkey. There are fears the virus will mutate into a form that will trigger the next  flu pandemic.



Bird flu is back, but officials urge calm