Hong Kong Culls Poultry Over Bird Flu Fears

HONG KONGThe Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) today announced it has completed the poultry culling operation at the Cheung Sha Wan Temporary Wholesale Poultry Market after a dead chicken there tested positive for the deadly H5N1 avian virus. A total of 19,451 poultry, including 15,569 chickens, 1,122 silky fowls, 1,950 pheasants and 810 pigeons were destroyed.

The wholesale market was thoroughly cleansed and disinfected to prevent the virus from growing and accumulating in the environment. It will be closed until January 12, 2012. The Hong Kong government also suspended imports of live chickens from mainland China and the trading of live chickens for 21 days in an effort to prevent any spread of the H5N1 avian virus.

In a related matter, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has asked researchers from Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands and the University of Wisconsin-Madison to amend upcoming journal articles that investigated how the bird flu virus might mutate to become a bioterrorism threat. NIH formally asked the journals Science and Nature to only publish general discoveries, not the complete text of their investigations.