Hong Kong Orders Slaughter of Most Poultry to Curb Virus

The Hong Kong government Friday ordered the immediate slaughter of 1.2 million chickens--virtually the territory’s entire poultry population--in a drastic attempt to stamp out a killer virus that officials fear could eventually affect humans.

“Having consulted experts . . . we feel that there is a need to take determined and comprehensive action, and this is precisely what we are going to do,” the Hong Kong government’s secretary of environment and food, Lily Yam, told a hastily called news conference.

She also announced an immediate ban on all imports of live chickens from mainland China.

Yam said the draconian steps were required “to arrest the influenza among our bird population and to avoid the possibility, no matter how remote, of this particular strain combining with others to form a new strain which may affect human beings.”

Meanwhile, authorities in Macau, about 40 miles west of Hong Kong across the Pearl River estuary, said they would destroy the territory’s entire poultry stock of about 20,000 birds after detecting the same virus among chickens there.

Fear that the virus could mutate into a strain able to infect humans is very real in Hong Kong. In 1997, the deaths of six people, including a 3-year-old boy, were traced to a different strain of the same chicken virus, called H5N1. About 1.4 million birds were ordered killed in a belated effort to avert a potentially far broader public health disaster.

Baby chickens and ducklings kept in a nature corner at the 3-year-old’s nursery school had died before he contracted the virus. In that instance, the government ordered a large-scale slaughter of birds only after other humans had been stricken with the virus, and authorities were severely criticized for not acting sooner.

At the news conference, Yam stressed repeatedly that Hong Kong was fighting a different strain of H5N1 from that which attacked the territory in 1997. But worries that it could quickly mutate into a strain that is dangerous to humans was said to be a key factor in ordering Friday’s swift, sweeping action.

Public health officials said the slaughter, which will also affect more than 40,000 farm-raised ducks and geese, would begin immediately and would likely take about two weeks to complete.

Birds already in retail street markets would be killed first, followed by those in large wholesale markets. Most of the estimated 1 million chickens kept on the territory’s 207 farms would be slaughtered beginning Monday. Disease-free chicks that are less than 3 months old would be spared.

The government said it has set aside more than $10 million to compensate those whose livelihoods will be affected, including farmers, wholesale and retail operators and truckers. After the cull is completed, the government plans an extensive cleaning and disinfection operation.

Some food retailers speculated that it could be mid-July before chickens are once again available for purchase by the public.

Authorities said they were unsure how the virus came into the markets. They said they believe that the virus is carried by geese and ducklings, although it is fatal only to chickens.

“Viruses could come in in many ways,” said Leslie Sims, assistant director of agriculture, fisheries and conservation. “They can come on people’s clothes, they could come on cages, they could come from waterfowl.”

The new strain was reportedly detected in early May during a routine check at one of the territory’s open markets. But it was only when more than 700 birds died as they were awaiting sale this week that the government reacted, ordering three markets closed and 6,000 chickens killed.

At a news conference Thursday, Yam described conditions as “normal,” but virtually as she was speaking, hundreds more dead birds were discovered, additional markets were closed and details hammered out for Friday’s sweeping actions.

Hong Kong’s chicken virus scare comes on the heels of an epidemic in Britain of foot-and-mouth disease among livestock this year that required the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of animals.