Plagues, Pestilences and
Diseases
Hong Kong bird tests positive for bird flu
by Staff Writers
Hong Kong (AFP) Dec 23, 2010
Hong Kong authorities confirmed Thursday that a dead bird found in
the southern Chinese territory had tested positive for the H5
strain of the bird flu virus.
A government spokeswoman told AFP that laboratory tests had
confirmed the highly decomposed chicken carcass found on the
seashore of an island in the territory on December 18 carried the
deadly strain.
In a press release a spokesman said the Hong Kong government was
"concerned about the incident and will continue to monitor the
situation".
There were no poultry farms within three kilometres of the shore
and there was no evidence of backyard poultry in nearby villages,
the statement added.
The government will step up inspections of the shore and its
immediate vicinity, the statement said.
Officials did not raise the city's public health warning on bird
flu.
In November, Hong Kong confirmed its first human case of bird flu
since 2003, after a 59-year-old woman tested positive for
Influenza A (H5), a variant of bird flu.
At the time, the government raised its avian influenza alert level
to "serious", but it has been lowered since.
Hong Kong was the site of the world's first major outbreak of bird
flu among humans in 1997, when six people died of a mutation of
the virus, which is normally confined to poultry.
Millions of birds were culled in the 1997 outbreak.
Six years later the city was gripped by a full-blown panic when
the deadly respiratory disease SARS emerged, killing about 300
people.
Public anxiety returned to the city of seven million people last
year with an outbreak of swine flu that claimed about 80 lives.