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Following is a transcript (English portion) of remarks made by the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr York Chow, at a stand-up media session at Legislative Council Building today (February 8):
Dr Chow: In view of the number of wild birds that were tested positive for H5N1 and also the two recent chickens that were found in a backyard farm, and one (of them is) stray chicken which we presume is also coming from some sort of backyard farm, we feel that it is very important that we have to heighten our alert in terms of protection of our citizens against the avian flu. So the timely legislative change that prohibits anybody to have any chickens in their home is very important, so I would like to appeal to anyone who are keeping chickens in their home to try to call our Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department so that we can collect the chickens for them.
Reporter: Would you consider slaughtering all live chickens in the light of the two infected birds?
Dr Chow: We feel that since these two chickens, one is a stray chicken and the other is actually from a backyard farm, so we feel that our current chicken farms in Hong Kong are still well protected. So there is no need to slaughter all the chickens in Hong Kong. But if any of our chickens in our chicken farms are affected, then we have to slaughter that particular chicken farm and also the vicinity of five kilometres. And if there is more than one chicken in our farms that are infected with H5N1, in our licenced farms, then we have to sacrifice all the chickens in Hong Kong. That was the policy that we established long time ago.
Reporter: What about vaccinating backyard chickens in the meantime?
Dr Chow: It is very difficult to ensure the vaccine works properly in a lot of the backyard farms, particularly some of the chickens are kept more than a long time, so they may be actually more than three or four months, and the vaccine may not be working after a certain period of time. And secondly, the more important one, is the segregation of chickens from the wild birds, and this has been properly done in our chicken farms but not in our backyard farms or in the homes that kept poultry. So this is very important that we have to ensure that only licensed farms are allowed to keep chickens.
Reporter: Is the government trying to do contact tracing. Are you trying to get hold of who have been in contact with the dead chicken?
Dr Chow: We have appealed to anyone who might be the owner of the chicken that was abandoned to contact us to ensure that he is healthy. Particularly if he has some symptoms of upper respiratory infection, it is very important for him to report early.
Reporter: Is it possible the boy in the hospital has any connection with the avian flu?
Dr Chow: No, there is absolutely no connection. The young boy actually returned to Hong Kong from Sichuan on February 2. He had symptoms on the February 4 and then admitted to the hospital. It is very unlikely he has contracted any of the avian flu in Hong Kong as he is proven of such. But we should have the result from the PCR sometime actually today.
It has just been reported that the PCR is negative for this child.
Reporter: Is there a possibility that the (dead) chicken is smuggled into Hong Kong?
Dr Chow: We have no idea. I think it is actually difficult to presume where the source of the chicken is. But it is important, particularly now we know that actually four species of wild birds and also five wild birds have been tested positive for H5N1. So we have to assume that actually the H5N1 is very endemic among our avian population in Hong Kong.
Reporter: So you must be very concerned?
Dr Chow: I think we are all concerned, but I think we still also know that we have done our very best to ensure that every defence line is being protected.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Wednesday, February 8, 2006
Issued at HKT 15:28
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