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Media session on Control Measures for Chicken Disease in HK

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The following is the transcript of English portion of the meet-the-media session and question-and-answer session given by the Secretary for the Environment and Food, Mrs Lily Yam, today (February 4) :

I will just repeat what I said just now, very briefly, in English. There has been some concern about the outbreak of a disease amongst the chicken population in a local farm, so I just want to do an interim summing-up of events in the last few days and the actions that we have taken.

Last Friday, the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department discovered a batch of chickens in the wholesale market and the health of the chickens seemed to have some problems, and further investigation proved that they had been infected and instant action was taken. The whole batch of chickens, 1,500-odd chickens, was destroyed that day.

On the same day the department traced the chickens to a farm in Kam Tin, Yuen Long. And on Saturday, further investigation revealed a substantial number of chicken deaths in that particular farm and action was taken to stop the farm from supplying further chickens to the market and that farm was placed under quarantine. Within 24 hours, all the chickens in the farm, about 100,000, were destroyed and all the cleansing and disinfection activities in that farm had been completed.

Yesterday, on Sunday, there were about 29 dead chickens in a market stall in Tsuen Wan Market and the stall owner told us that the farm in question, the farm that was placed under quarantine, was one of his suppliers. And the other chickens in that particular stall also showed signs of infection. So ,we destroyed 300 chickens in that stall. And that was the situation yesterday.

This morning, two farms reported to us that there were a substantial number of chicken deaths in their farms.

Investigation by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department revealed that one of the two farms was infected because some 1 000 chickens died just this morning.

So, similar action was taken in respect of that farm. That farm was placed under quarantine. The farm would be depopulated. It would be closed and there would be no further supply of chickens from that farm to the markets.

At the other farm that reported a similar problem, we found that the number of deaths was just in the 30's. But it has been placed under observation and investigation is continuing.

As far as the markets are concerned, the chickens in all markets are healthy and only 15 deaths - with the exception of the Tsuen Wan Market - only 15 deaths have been reported as at this afternoon. That is the situation for the retail markets.

But in Tsuen Wan Market, the stall next to the one which was closed yesterday also had infected chickens and we took the decision to close the Tsuen Wan Market and to destroy the 3,000-odd chickens in that particular market.

Any disease amongst chickens, it has one characteristic and that is the infection spreads very quickly, and we closed that market as a precautionary measure.

The third issue that I want to report today is that the test result of the chickens destroyed last Friday and last Saturday - they all came from the same farm - revealed that the chickens had been infected with an H5 virus. Now, an H5 virus is just one type of virus that affects chickens and we have yet to establish further details about this virus.

So it is not correct to say that we have been infected by H5 N1 virus. I can only say that as at today, there is no sign that the virus is the one that affects human beings and the situation in the wholesale market, in our retail markets, bears out the fact that the infection is not spreading as quickly as the one that affected us in May last year.

In May last year, the infection started off on the Tuesday in three markets and by Friday it had spread to 10 markets in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories and the number of chicken deaths in the retail markets was substantial. Also, last May, we already had scientific evidence to show that a month earlier, amongst the 10 markets, some of them had been affected by a type of H5N1 virus that affects human beings and that were showing signs of regrouping, reassortment, and that is always a worrying sign. So on the basis of the two indicators, the substantial number of chicken deaths, the fact that they occurred in markets spread out in Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories, and the earlier test findings about the presence of H5N1 virus showing signs of reassortment in some of these markets, we took the decision to depopulate chickens in Hong Kong.

On this occasion, so far, two markets have been infected. Even counting the third one which is still under investigation, these markets are confined - Sorry, farms, two farms with a third under investigation - these three farms are confined to the Kam Tin area.

Markets: So far everything is normal, except for the Tsuen Wan Market where two stalls have been affected and we know that one of the farms that is infected is one of its suppliers. So, for the next few days we will continue to keep the situation in local farms and market stalls under close observation. Further details about the H5 virus should be available in about a week's time.

I should just emphasize two points. There is no sign, as yet, that the virus (which) affected a small number of farms and two market stalls this time, would affect human beings. We just have to wait and see. And it is safe to eat chickens.

And, of course, farm owners and market stall holders have a duty under the law to report to the authorities any unusual deaths amongst their chickens and if the chickens' health was suspected to be problematic. So they have an obligation to report.

Question: Mrs Yam, can you just give us two numbers: the number of chickens that died from the virus infection and the number of chickens that were slaughtered because of the suspected infection?

SEF: Well, in the first farm where we destroyed the chickens on Saturday, there were about 100,000 chickens. It is one of the larger chicken farms in Hong Kong.

Question (follow-up): Would it be a total of 200,000 chickens that were slaughtered as of --

SEF: I am trying to do some mental arithmetic. It is less than 200,000. Including the 3,300 it would be 171,000.

Question (follow-up): That is since Friday?

SEF: I want to make sure that my sums are right. (Pause) No, no, no, I was given a figure of 101,000, not 111,000. So it is 167,300 if you really want it down to the hundred.

Question (follow-up): Okay. And that is just from the two farms that were quarantined so far?

SEF: That is from the two farms that were placed under quarantine and the Tsuen Wan retail market.

Question: There is a second question about how many chickens died from the H5 virus?

SEF: Well, let me put it this way. When there is an infection, the number of chickens that die, it changes very rapidly. So in the first farm, the first count that died was a couple of thousand. Within a few hours it became 10,000. The significant point is that the infection spreads so very quickly, we have to take almost immediate action to destroy the chickens.

SEF: So can I repeat this in English. The total number of chickens we destroyed from Friday onwards is 168,300.

Question: What is the total chicken population in Hong Kong?

SEF: The total number, millions. Three millions. And we consume about 100,000 live chickens a day.

Question: Sorry, I have to ask you to repeat again. It is basically the point on the monitoring system. You say the Bureau's monitoring is adequate. Why do you say that?

SEF: If we don't have an effective monitoring system, we would not have been able to intercept this batch of chickens in the wholesale market on Friday. As a result of the interception of this batch of sickly chickens on Friday, we were able to trace the problem to a particular farm in Yuen Long and the following day we placed the farm under quarantine, we stopped the farm from supplying more chickens to the market, and we destroyed all the chickens in that particular farm. If it weren't for our monitoring and surveillance system, we would not have been able to take all these actions within a matter of one or two days.

Question: Of the 168,000 chickens slaughtered, how much did it cost the government in terms of compensation to the farm owners?

SEF: Well, under the law, if we destroy any chickens in order to stop an infection or a disease from spreading, we have to pay out compensation. And the statutory compensation limit, under the law, the upper limit for each chicken, is thirty dollars. So if we do a rough calculation, taking into account the number of chickens destroyed in the two farms and in the Tsuen Wan Market, the estimated compensation would be in the region of five million dollars.

(Please also refer to the part on Chinese version)

End/Monday, February 4, 2002

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