Press Releases
Surveillance on avian flu to be stepped up
The Government will step up its monitoring and surveillance efforts to minimize the risk of an avian influenza outbreak during the period immediately before the Chinese New Year when demand for chickens is expected to soar, a spokesman for the Health, Welfare and Food Bureau, said today (January 22).
In response to press enquiries, the spokesman said that since Hong Kong is a favourite stopover for many wild birds that are potential carriers of the virus, it is difficult to track down the source of the virus.
"As the virus has become endemic, it cannot be eliminated altogether. As long as we have poultry farming and live chicken trading at the retail level, there will always be a risk of avian flu occurring. Depopulation is therefore no longer the only course of action to take in the event of an outbreak. The concerned departments have now put into place a comprehensive and sensitive surveillance programme to detect the presence of the virus.
"We also have a package of measures to prevent as far as possible the virus from entering the production and marketing chain. Chickens from local farms are required to go through a quick test to detect the presence of the H5 virus within five days before they are marketed.
"On arrival at the Cheung Sha Wan Temporary Wholesale Poultry Market, they are also required to be blood tested before they are allowed to be released to the retail markets. The wholesale market is also thoroughly cleansed on a regular basis in order to maintain good hygienic standards. There are now four rest days for wholesale market and they fall on 5,10,24 and 25 of each month", the spokesman said.
On other preventive measures, the spokesman said: "In enhancing our preventive capability, we have been working closely with the trades to improve and upgrade biosecurity at the farms and introduce stricter hygiene standards at the retail markets.
"We will remain vigilant at the import level in our inspection of imported live chickens. In addition, we are now piloting and evaluating the trial vaccination programme as a complementary outbreak control measure.
"The winter season is a high risk period when the demand for and consumption of chickens are at a seasonal high. With the very substantial number of chickens being kept in the farms and in the retail markets, there is a higher risk of an outbreak occurring.
"Since the start of the winter period, we have had experienced sporadic outbreaks of the avian flu in the farms. As and when there is an outbreak, such as the ones that occurred in Ta Kwu Ling, Pat Heung and Tai Kong Po, we will deploy various effective measures such as placing the affected chickens under quarantine, extending the trial vaccination programme to the affected farm and other surrounding farms, etc. to contain the spread of the disease.
"We will review these measures to see if we can further improve our preventive capability in the light of changing circumstances," the spokesman said.
With the Chinese New Year approaching, the spokesman noted there would be a significant increase in the supply of chickens to the retail market over the next 10 days.
"It is therefore very important that we have now obtained the co-operation of the market stall-holders to introduce an additional rest day for January so that intensive cleansing operations could be conducted to deal with the heightened risk. The next normal rest day will fall on January 25.
"There is scientific evidence to show that rest days are effective in reducing the overall virus load and in breaking the virus cycle in the markets," the spokesman added.
End/January 22, 2003
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