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Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, at a stand-up media session at the West Wing lobby of Central Government Offices today (December 9):
Secretary for Food and Health: We have received a report from the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) that there was an outbreak of chicken deaths in one chicken farm in Yuen Long yesterday morning. We have discovered that there were up to 60 dead chickens in that farm, and after a series of tests, we have confirmed this morning that the chickens died from H5 virus. We had a meeting with all the concern departments this afternoon including the AFCD, the Department of Health and the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD). And with the recommendation of the AFCD, I have elevated the alert state of avian influenza to "serious" starting from now.
The AFCD has already declared the affected farm as the index farm. And from that we have drawn a three-kilometre radius, so that any chicken in that area will be considered infected. The total infected farm would be two, and altogether there were about 80000 chickens. We shall cull those chickens, starting from the index farm, and then the second farm.
We had also decided that we shall ban all the outlets of chickens from our farms for 21 days, and also suspend all the import of chicken and poultry including birds for the next 21 days.
Since there are also chickens stored in Cheung Sha Wan Wholesale Market, they will also be culled starting from tomorrow.
The AFCD and the FEHD would also clean up those retail outlets and the wholesale market, to ensure that there would not be any more spreading of the virus. The Centre for Health Protection (CHP) will contact the owners and the workers of the affected farms, to make sure they are not infected. So far we have not received any information about people being affected. Hong Kong is facing a new alert of avian flu. We should be more cautious particularly with the winter coming and also the appearance of H5 virus in our farm. I hope that all the citizens would be more cautious and ensure they look after themselves well, and also ensure they have a good personal hygiene and environmental hygiene.
Reporter: How could this happen again?
Secretary for Food and Health: The last time we have outbreak in a farm is at the end of 2002. With all the measures taken in the last six years, so far we did not have any outbreaks in any farms. This time round we are concerned about whether it would lead to such an outbreak. Now that the deaths were chickens breeders and also the so call sentinel chicken, that is, chicken that had not been vaccinated. We also found more vaccinated chickens being affected. We have to investigate the cause of the outbreak, and the sequence of the outbreak. We have to analyse the whole situation. And obviously we are concerned where the virus come from, as you know that virus exists in our natural environment with all the wild birds. This is something that we always aware of. But whether there is any biosecurity lapse in the farm or whether there is any contamination of any sort inside the farm, that requires more investigations.
Reporter: (inaudible)
AFCD Assistant Director (Inspection & Quarantine) Dr. Thomas Sit: We know the viruses existed in the region especially in the winter time. The migrating birds and the wild birds will carry the virus. And during our surveillance in the last few years, you know the viruses present in the wild birds and the dead birds surveillance. That¡¦s why we had to investigate whether there will be some contamination from the wild bird species or other means for the virus to get into the farm and make the chicken infected. We will conduct investigation including taking blood samples and faecal samples in the affected farm.
Reporter: Does that mean the vaccine is useless?
Secretary for Food and Health: We cannot confirm this yet, but according to the facts received, there are also chickens with vaccination affected. So we have to investigate on both, whether the virus has changed or whether the vaccination has changed the immunity of them.
Reporter: ¡K or any changes of the¡K?
Secretary for Food and Health: We cannot conclude in just a couple of days. Usually, virus sequencing would take actually a few days, or up to two or three weeks before we can be certain. We will be doing more tests on this virus and we are also working with the Hong Kong University on this.
Reporter: (inaudible)
Secretary for Food and Health: We have been using the same vaccine during the last, I think six years.
Reporter: Mainland¡K¡K?
Secretary for Food and Health: I think there is always outbreak of chicken everywhere, every now and then. We have not actually received any information from the Mainland.
Reporter: So, we won¡¦t have any fresh chicken immediately?
Secretary for Food and Health: 21 days, I think it would be from now until after Christmas.
Reporter: (inaudible)
Secretary for Food and Health: We cannot conclude with just the information we got so far. We are investigating on various factors. As I mentioned earlier on, there are quite a number of factors that could actually result in such an outbreak.
Reporter: (inaudible)
Secretary for Food and Health: I think in May/April. Actually we have declared Hong Kong is in "Serious" state for 21 days, when we have a H5N1 virus in our market. Do you remember that?
Reporter: ¡Kinfected chickens?
Secretary for Food and Health: Since we have tested chickens from this farm last Friday. And after that, that batch of chickens was already gone into the market. And I believe it was all sold by now. Any of the new development after that could be only in a couple of days. So I don¡¦t think there is any delay in the reporting of this farm incident.
Reporter: Financial tsunami¡K?
AFCD Assistant Director (Inspection & Quarantine) Dr. Thomas Sit: I think we are very unfortunate to start with. And these are not something related. The risk of avian flu is always there in our environment. And I think we have been always very vigilant in monitoring various biosecurity of our own farms and also the imported poultry. So in this case, of course I am concerned whether there is any extra factor that would affect us, and any extra measure that we have to take in the future. Unless we have any new information regarding the virus, and also the effectiveness of the vaccination, otherwise, I think the existing measures are basically of the international standards, and these are measures we need to continue. Apart from the policy and the measures, we have to ensure that people comply with them. We will try to investigate and see whether we can find a more probable cause for this outbreak.
Reporter: ¡Ksufficient vaccine in stock?
Secretary for Food and Health: As we have always prepared for the arrival of a possible pandemic, we have actually quite a sizeable stock of Tamiflu in the Department of Health and it should be quite sufficient for our protection up to about 20% of our population. So for this particular incident, we don¡¦t worry the shortage of Tamiflu. We should have sufficient drugs and medicines to look after anybody who might be exposed to avian flu.
Report: What about the vaccine?
Secretary for Food and Health: You mean avian flu vaccine for human? No, I think it is still in a very early experiment stage.
(Please also refer to the Chinese session of the transcript)
Ends/Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Issued at HKT 23:45
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