A routine test of live chicken feces samples collected at a local street market last month showed the presence of the H7N9 avian flu virus in one sample, prompting relevant authorities to ban all sales and imports of live chickens in Hong Kong beginning this Sunday. While the incidence of H7N9 infection in humans remains rather low at this point, the fact that the virus is still alive in mid-May is reason enough for renewed public awareness of personal hygiene as well as more drastic means of prevention, particularly centralized slaughtering of all birds sold in Hong Kong.

Public health authorities on Monday announced the ban on sales of live poultry will stay for now while the government carries out inspection of the remaining poultry farms and further testing of blood and feces samples. This means Hong Kong residents will have to eat frozen chickens imported from outside suppliers until all these operations are over and the health authorities find no more bird flu virus in the samples tested. It may be necessary for people to prepare for the worst-case scenario - no more live poultry on sale here.

It has been suggested for quite some time now that local consumers may not have to give up their preference for freshly killed birds if Hong Kong adopts centralized automatic slaughtering of all live birds. It would be much cleaner than having the poor birds killed at the markets just before they are sold to consumers and would be quite effective in preventing the bird flu virus from spreading to humans. While leaving this option open, the SAR government has decided to cull all the live birds at the wholesale poultry market in Cheung Sha Wan and continue trying to establish the source of the H7N9 virus.

It is widely recognized the most likely original carriers of avian flu viruses are migrant birds. These birds bring the pathogen from the north to the south in winter and back to the north in spring. We need to keep in mind that bird flu viruses are constantly mutating, which makes the development of vaccines extremely difficult. Thus the most practical approach to bird flu prevention seems to be a total ban of live poultry retail sales in this town. Better safe than sorry, right?

(HK Edition 06/07/2016 page1)