Via South China Morning Post: Bird flu scare shuts down popular songbird garden in Hong Kong for 21 days. Excerpt:
A bird flu scare in Hong Kong has silenced the repertoire of caged tunes enthusiasts are accustomed to hearing at the popular Yuen Po Street Bird Garden in Mong Kok, as authorities on Friday closed down the area for 21 days and declared it an infection risk.
A cleansing operation is under way, after a swab sample from a hill myna sold at a pet shop was found to contain the H5 virus, a strain of bird flu that can be transmitted to humans.
The sample was collected on April 7 for laboratory tests under a routine surveillance programme by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department, a spokesman said.
Store operators and workers are being medically monitored by the Centre for Health Protection, but they are still allowed to move freely in and out of the area.
All birds from the affected shop were sent to an animal management centre in Sheung Shui for culling, the spokesman added. “Pet bird shops in the bird garden are being closely monitored. So far nothing abnormal has been detected,” he said.
As of the end of March, the department had collected a total of 788 samples from 33 pet bird shops across the city, and 2,980 samples last year.
None tested positive for the highly pathogenic virus that is more commonly found in wild birds and occasionally in live poultry.
For more details, see Mike Coston's posts on Avian Flu Diary, here and here.
