Shanghai Daily | 上海日报 -- English Window to China News

HONG Kong health authorities closed down a poultry market yesterday after excrement samples collected from hencoops were confirmed to be infected with the deadly strain of H5N1 avian influenza virus.

Dr York Chow, secretary for Food and Health, announced at a press conference yesterday afternoon that the Po On Road Market in Kowloon was an infected area and ordered the immediate suspension of trading.

Chow said after days of laboratory testing five of the 20 excrement samples collected from three poultry stores on June 3 were confirmed H5N1 positive and an order was issued immediately to cull about 2,700 chickens.

"We are still investigating the source of the H5N1 virus infections," he said, adding other 64 poultry markets had reported no H5N1 cases.

Chow said there has been no report of human case of H5N1 infections but the department had raised the response level from "vigilance" to "serious."

The Food and Health Department had immediately suspended live poultry imports from the mainland and trading at local chicken farms. Chow said the suspension may last as long as 21 days.

Chow said the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government had notified the Ministry of Agriculture and the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the latest outbreak.

He said no unusual incidents had been reported in registered chicken farm on the mainland and no abnormal poultry deaths had been reported by store owners during the past days.

Thomas Tsang, controller of the Center for Health Protection, said the center would conduct health checkups and prescribe anti-virus medicine for those people in close contact with live poultry.