Hong Kong Enforces Poultry Ban in Bird Flu Fight

By Tan Ee Lyn

HONG KONG — Government workers searched rural areas of Hong Kong for poultry on Monday to enforce a ban on backyard fowl to try to stop bird flu taking hold in one of the world’s most densely populated cities.

Jitters have grown in Hong Kong, already on edge following eight deaths from bird flu in China and after six wild birds and two chickens in the territory were killed by the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza in the past three weeks.

The ban brought tears of despair to bird owners in Hong Kong’s rural New Territories, who saw their poultry as pets, as well as food.

"Why doesn’t (health minister) York Chow allow us residents to rear baby geese? We just place them at our door," sobbed Feng Che, who gave away most of her geese and chickens last week.

"I fainted twice last night," she said as she looked on her six goslings and two chickens, waiting to see if government officials would turn up to seize them.

Hong Kong has not had any bird flu infections in people since the present outbreak began in Asia in late 2003. But the territory’s health chief said earlier this month that H5N1 is probably endemic in the region around Hong Kong.

Hong Kong’s legislature passed last week an emergency law banning backyard poultry farming and officials stressed on Monday that poultry would be culled with no further warning.

"Chickens, ducks, geese, pigeons and quails are out and not even one can be kept. From today, we will confiscate," said a government spokesman. Under the new law, anyone breaking the ban can be fined up to HK$100,000 (US$12,900).

The virus has killed at least 90 people in Asia and the Middle East, and forced the culling of millions of birds since late 2003.

Global fears grew over the weekend after the deadly strain first appeared in the European Union, in swans in Greece and Italy, while Nigeria waited nervously for test results on two children feared to be the first Africans to be infected.

Most human victims caught the virus directly from birds but experts fear H5N1 could mutate into a form that can spread between people and spark a pandemic, killing millions.

GOT TO BE FRESH

Hong Kong people are almost fanatical about cooking and consuming only freshly slaughtered poultry and many rural households keep chickens, ducks and geese for their table.

A census last year found nearly 13,000 ducks and chickens in the territory, with each farmer having an average of seven birds.

The government is keen to wipe out bird flu from the city where the virus made its first known jump to humans in 1997, killing six people. The spread of the deadly SARS virus to the city from mainland China in 2003 has reinforced the risk.

In Hong Kong, workers searched around homes for traces of poultry. Before the new law, households did not require any license if they kept fewer than 20 birds.

"From today, do not rear poultry in your backyard or around your house, okay?" one government worker told a resident.

An official said 700 birds had been seized so far this month but many poultry owners had culled their own birds so it was unclear how many were left.