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Hong Kong to cull 80,000 chickens after H5 outbreak

by sheshank | December 10, 2008 at 12:20 am

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Hong Kong health authorities raised the city's avian flu alert to "serious" on Tuesday after some chickens at a farm were confirmed to have the H5 birdflu virus, prompting the cull of 80,000 chickens.

The H5 birdflu strain is a low pathogenic avian influenza. Experts fear the more deadly H5N1 strain, which remains mainly an animal disease but has infected humans, could mutate to a form that spreads easily among people.

Hong Kong health authorities did not rule out the possibility the virus might be H5N1, pending further tests.

The city's Health Secretary York Chow said the affected farm was in Hong Kong's northeastern Yuen Long district near the border with China, which reported the unusual deaths of 60 chickens on Monday.

"After a series of tests, we have confirmed this morning that the chickens died from the H5 virus," Chow told reporters, adding three dead chickens were tested and 20 feces samples were taken.

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Rey (not verified)

at 07:09 on April 26th, 2009

this h-5 disease was predicted by a well-known prophet Nastrodomus he said their will be an outbreak killing almost half of the worlds population and the disease was called h-5. Now, in my opinion I believe the end of the world is near where we can't trust our government where global warming and catistophic events are occuring and have also been predicted. Our everyday product uses are not safe check an ingredient on the back of toothpaste shampoos soap, the ingredient is (SLS) just comes to prove how much we should trust our government. It's lurking closer to the end of the world and people need to face reality and realize we are only doing it to ourselves. so just enjoy the time you have with your family because you never know what the next day has coming for you.