Hong Kong will soon lift a ban on the import of live poultry and other birds
from China's neighbouring Guangdong province, three weeks after a man died of
bird flu in the infected region.
Carrie Yau, Permanent Secretary for
Health, Welfare and Food, said imports would resume on March 26, three weeks
after the first human bird flu death in the province.
Yau said the decision was made after her team visited farms in Guangdong and
found no new human cases and no outbreak of bird flu there. No decision has yet
been made on the lifting of an import ban on day-old chicks, she said.
Yau said imports of live chickens from China to Hong Kong would be capped at
20,000 a day when the ban is lifted, down from the previous 30,000.
The arrangement will be reviewed in mid-April and flexibility will apply
during festive periods.
Ten people have died in mainland China of bird flu since 2003.
Hong Kong was the scene of the world's first reported major bird flu outbreak
among humans in 1997, when six people died. The government slaughtered all the
city's 1.5 million poultry to contain the outbreak.
The last human cases in the city were in 2003, when two people were infected
and one died. But 16 birds have tested positive for the disease in recent weeks.