Hong Kong began culling more than 17,000 birds and banned the sale and import of live poultry for 21 days after the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus was found in a chicken carcass at a wholesale market. The government hasn't determined whether the infected bird came from local farms or was imported, York Chow, secretary for food and health, said in a statement today.
Hong Kong takes a tough line on the highly pathogenic strain of flu virus, first recorded in humans in the city in 1997 and which has since spread through Asia, Europe and Africa, resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of birds and killing more than half of the people that caught it. The city of 7 million people was also hit by an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in 2003 in which 299 people died.
"Hong Kong has the best H5N1 contingency plan to be found in any part of the world," said Yuen Kwok-yung, chair of infectious diseases at the University of Hong Kong's department of microbiology. "We should not panic. Every winter there is increased H5N1 activity in poultry and migratory birds."
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