Hong Kong Confirms 5th Bird With H5N1 Avian Flu Virus (Update1) Feb. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong said a fifth bird tested positive for the H5N1 strain of avian influenza in a new wave of outbreaks that has prompted local officials to seek a ban on private ownership of poultry.
A magpie collected by the Agriculture and Fisheries Department on Feb. 2 in the Tuen Mun district of suburban New Territories died the following day, the Hong Kong government said in a faxed statement yesterday. The virus was confirmed by laboratory tests, it said.
The city is struggling to prevent illegal smuggling of poultry from China's mainland and is trying to cull poultry to stem the spread of the H5N1 virus, which risks sparking a potentially lethal influenza pandemic. An H5N1 outbreak there in 1997 prompted one of the world's largest bird culls, when almost 1.5 million fowl were destroyed in three days.
``Even in Hong Kong, where awareness about avian influenza is high, there are still incidents of inappropriate behavior,'' said Peter Cordingley, a spokesman with the World Health Organization in Manila. ``Chickens imported from China are subject to rigorous health checks, and smuggling them into Hong Kong without these checks poses a health threat.''
Hong Kong vaccinates all legally imported poultry and all the dead birds found to have been infected with H5N1 recently were wild. Separately, a chicken illegally imported from mainland China also tested positive for the virus.
`Maximum Caution'
``The fact that another wild bird has been found to be infected with H5N1 in Hong Kong shows that the virus is probably present in the vicinity and that the public needs to exercise maximum caution,'' Cordingley said.
The H5N1 avian flu virus was first reported in 1996 in China's southern Guangdong Province. Authorities in China have not reported any outbreaks in poultry in that province since 2004, Cordingley said. ``However, Chinese authorities have acknowledged that surveillance in chickens needs to be improved.''
The government of Shenzhen, the mainland city adjoining Hong Kong, has increased monitoring of the loading of chickens being sent to Hong Kong and is giving them health checks at the boarder, Hong Kong Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food York Chow said.
Chow said he's concerned about the origin of the chicken that tested positive for H5N1 and said it was impossible to determine whether the bird contracted the virus before its purchase in China or after it arrived in Hong Kong.
Shenzen Birds
Hong Kong may reduce the number of live chickens it allows to be imported into the city from Shenzhen if there's a continuous outbreak of H5N1 in either Hong Kong or southern China, Chow said.
Chow said on Feb. 3 that legislation prohibiting private ownership of poultry may be in place as early the next week. His department is also recommending a fine of HK$50,000-HK$100,000 ($6,444-$12,888) for violations, he said. Current Hong Kong legislation allows private poultry ownership of no more than 20 birds.
The disease in birds creates more opportunity for human infection and increases the risk of the virus changing into a form that is more contagious to people. Such a virus may touch off a pandemic similar to the one that killed as many as 50 million people in 1918.
The H5N1 virus has killed at least 88 of the 165 people known to have been infected, the World Health Organization said on Feb. 6.
Hong Kong's current wave of bird flu outbreaks probably began a month ago, when an adult Oriental magpie robin was found dead on Jan. 10, the World Organization for Animal Health said in a report on its Web site.
The magpie had a variant of the virus the same as that previously found in birds in southern China, Japan and South Korea, the Paris-based organization said.
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