Health authorities in Hong Kong announced on Wednesday that they would slaughter all live chickens in the retail markets following further reported cases of H5N1 infections among the poultry on the market.

The decision came after faeces samples taken from markets at Tuen Mun, Fanling and Ap Lei Chau tested positive for the deadly H5N1 virus, the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government said.

"We have announced that all market stores and fresh provision shops selling live poultry are now infected areas," said department director Cheung Siu-hing.

Cheung said local authorities had launched the culling on all the chickens across about 470 stores in 64 markets throughout the city. It is estimated that the culling involves 3,500 chickens.

The culling was presently restricted to chickens in the retail markets. The chicken farms in the special administrative region were not affected.

Secretary for Food and Health York Chow said samples taken by the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation from local chicken farms so far all tested negative for the H5N1 strain of the virus, adding that sound bio-security measures had been in place on most of the farms, making them relatively safe.

Chow announced on Wednesday that the HKSAR government had decided to suspend import of live chickens from the mainland in 21 days starting from Wednesday, a decision in line with international guidelines.

Supplies of live chickens from local farmers were also suspended.

The possibility of extending the 21-day suspension will not be ruled not, Chow said.

Chow said experts had not found any signs of virus mutation so far.

Five faeces samples taken from the Po On Road Market in Kowloon tested positive for H5N1 last week, forcing the authorities to cull about 2,700 live chickens on Saturday. Authorities had said they would cull more poultry if more cases of H5N1 were reported.

Hong Kong used to see a major bird flu outbreak as early as 1997, when local authorities culled the entire 1.5 million poultry population in the city. There had been sparks of bird flu cases but no major outbreak since then.

(Xinhua News Agency June 12, 2008)