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Tuesday September 18 2007

H5N1 find in Guangdong prompts poultry ban

Lilian Goh

Hong Kong has imposed a partial ban on poultry imports from Guangdong after the Ministry of Agriculture confirmed an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu had killed thousands of ducks in a Guangzhou village.

Secretary for Health and Food York Chow Yat-ngok announced last night that all imports of live poultry and birds, day-old chicks, poultry eggs, and chilled and frozen poultry meat from all farms within a 24km radius of Xinzao town, in Panyu district, would be stopped.

The ban will last for three weeks, affecting about 20 poultry farms. Imports of chilled and frozen ducks and geese from Guangdong, and their eggs, will be halted for one week. Live ducks and geese are not imported from the mainland.

The government had planned to increase the daily imports of live chickens from the mainland to 70,000 from Thursday to Sunday for next Tuesday's Mid-Autumn Festival, but scrapped the plan. The limit will remain at 20,000.

'We will keep in touch with the ministry and the Guangdong Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine Bureau for daily updates on the epidemic and draw up timely preventive and control measures,' Dr Chow said.

As the outbreak had not spread widely, it was not necessary to stop all poultry imports from the province, he said. The Xinzao town ban was said to be sufficient because international guidelines recommended a suspension of poultry imports only from an 8km-radius.

Dr Chow said people did 'not need to be over-worried'. He said the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department would send staff to inspect the poultry farms that continued to supply live chickens.

Ho Pak-leung, associate professor of microbiology at Hong Kong University, said it was too early to say if a virus mutation was involved.

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