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HONG KONG : Backyard poultry farming is to be banned in Hong Kong after a bird-flu infected chicken was smuggled into the southern Chinese territory, a top official said Tuesday.
Food and health permanent secretary Carrie Yau said legislation would be tabled on Wednesday and hopefully be made law as soon as Monday.
Anyone found keeping poultry will be fined up to 100,000 Hong Kong dollars (12,800 US dollars), she told lawmakers.
The measure follows the discovery that a chicken infected with the H5N1 flu virus was smuggled into Hong Kong last week and given to a villager as a gift.
The chicken later died and three members of the villager's family were put in hospital isolation for tests, which subsequently proved negative.
Nontheless, the scare highlighted the patchy application of usually tight bird-flu controls in the rural areas along the fluid border with China, where the affected villagers live.
Bird flu has killed at least 85 people since 2003 in outbreaks that have ravaged Asia and are now menacing Eastern Europe.
Experts believe the disease has been spread among poultry flocks by migratory wild birds.
Four local non-migratory birds are confirmed to have died of the disease in Hong Kong this year, sparking the worst bird flu scare here since two people died of the virus in 2003 and two falcons were found with it in 2004.
The agriculture department said late Tuesday that preliminary tests on the carcass of a little egret also indicated a suspected case of H5NI infection but further confirmatory tests were being conducted.
The discoveries have prompted fears that there is an as yet undiscovered pool of the virus in Hong Kong or China's neighbouring Guangdong province. - AFP /dt
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