The chicken slaughter exercise launched yesterday to tackle the problem of avian flu went off in full swing with the co-operation of chicken farmers and poultry stall operators.

The operation, involving staff from Urban Services Department, Regional Services Department and Agriculture and Fisheries Department (AFD), covered all retail outlets, wholesale markets and farms in the vicinity of the infected places for animals and birds in Yuen Long yesterday.

Some slight difficulties were encountered in dealing with chicken farms due to the remoteness of these places and logistic problems in arranging sufficient carbon dioxide cylinders to these farms.

The exercise continued today with a total of 1,200 staff and 60 workers in the industry taking part in this operation.

The whole slaughter exercise covering chickens at all chicken farms and poultry at all wholesale and retail outlets should be substantially completed by midnight today. The total number of poultry to be slaughtered would be around 1.3 million.

Thorough cleansing and disinfection work would follow after the slaughter exercise to ensure the hygiene status of these places.

The Secretary for Economic Services, Mr Stephen Ip, said that at the request of the HKSAR Government, the Mainland authorities had agreed not to resume export of chickens to Hong Kong until the cleansing of all farms, wholesale markets and retail market stalls has been completed and that a good system is in place to ensure chicken entering Hong Kong in future are free from virus.

The control system that has been agreed with the Mainland authorities will include the following:

- Checking and certification system by the Mainland authorities that the poultry are from farms licensed by them for export. The health status of these farms is monitored by authorised vets.

- AFD participates in Mainland authorities' inspection of poultry farms supplying Hong Kong. AFD also works with them to standardise testing methods.

- Checking of certificates by AFD at the border and sample test of every consignment passing through Man Kam To or Western Wholesale Market if by sea.

- All birds intended for export to Hong Kong must be segregated for five days and must pass the diagnostic test for H5 avian influenza prior to export to HK.

- Chicken samples will be taken from each consignment at border check points and the wholesale markets and tested for H5 virus. All chickens released for sale must pass the test.

- All cages will be labelled to facilitate the recall of birds for destruction in case of positive results.

For locally bred poultry, the health status of the flocks would be closely monitored through blood testing to ensure that they were free from H5 infection. New requirements including more stringent sanitary conditions would be incorporated into the conditions of licensing of poultry farms. A cage labelling system had been put in place for local chickens to allow AFD staff to track the movements of the bird.

Meanwhile, the health status of other poultry would also be closely checked and monitored.

Mr Ip said that the question of compensation was being actively considered within Government. The Administration would be seeking funds from the Finance Committee on January 9, 1998.

Acting Secretary for Health and Welfare, Mr Gregory Leung, said the slaughter exercise was a reasonable precautionary measure to minimise the risk of avian flu to HK people. The Department of Health (DH) would continue to monitor the situation closely.

As at today, there was a total of 13 confirmed and six suspected cases of avian flu. No new cases have been notified for the last three consecutive days. Patients of six confirmed cases had recovered and been discharged.

The main mode of transmission of avian flu is bird-to-man. Man-to-man transmission, if occuring, is inefficient at this stage. The issue of vaccine development is also being actively pursued. A high level of surveillance will be maintained to detect changes in the avian flu virus that may increase the efficiency of transmission.

A total of 314 people attended DH's 14 special surveillance centres for poultry farmers, retailers and workers yesterday. All of them underwent health checks and were found to be free from influenza symptoms.

He called upon this group of people to come forward for health checks and surveillance at the special centres to protect their health and to provide important information to the surveillance system.

General Out-patient clinics under the Department of Health would provide extended service into afternoon sessions during the New Year holiday (Jan 1) as well as the second and third days of the Chinese New Year (Jan 29 and 30).

Mr Leung stressed that according to WHO the cluster of cases of human influenza A H5N1 seen in Hong Kong does not indicate an epidemic. There is no need for travel restrictions in Hong Kong or elsewhere in the world.

The public are advised that the best protection against avian flu is good personal hygiene and body immunity. Strict handwashing after handling poultry is most important. Frozen poultry pose no health hazard if they are well cooked.