Hong Kong widens search for bird flu source

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Government workers took samples from cages, walls and feeding bowls at 50 local chicken farms and 64 markets, but no new infections had been detected, said Sally Hong, spokeswoman for the agriculture, fisheries and conservation department.

The action came after a mass slaughtering of 2,900 chickens at 470 retail outlets on Wednesday after poultry in four street markets tested positive for the dangerous H5N1 avian flu virus. Officials had also killed 2,700 poultry on Saturday in a market after routine testing showed five chickens were infected.

A 21-day ban on poultry from mainland China and local farms have been imposed since Saturday's discovery.

The virus has not been detected in the 1.5 million chickens in the local farms.

Meanwhile, the government met with poultry trade workers about possibly banning the storage of chickens in markets overnight and other steps to prevent more outbreaks.

"The existing control is insufficient. We might have to impose more vigilant measures in order to control the environment before we allow the chickens to go back into markets," said York Chow, Hong Kong's health secretary.

Chow added a centralized chicken-slaughtering system was the ultimate solution. The government had wanted to introduce the centralized system for years, but poultry workers considered the plan as a threat to their livelihoods. Poultry are now killed on the spot in retail stores for freshness.

Hong Kong used to import 20,000 chickens from mainland China and another 20,000 supplied from local chicken farms each day, officials said.

Hong Kong's biggest bird flu outbreak was in 1997, when the H5N1 strain jumped to humans and killed six people. That prompted the government to slaughter the entire poultry population of about 1.5 million birds.

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