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Live chickens from the mainland were back on sale yesterday in Hong Kong.

More than 20,000 live chickens from the mainland, 5,500 of which were from Shenzhen, were imported to the SAR over the weekend, three weeks after imports were banned following a human bird flu death in Guangzhou.

The ban was imposed March 6 after the first human bird flu fatality in Guangdong was confirmed.

Officials said the 20,000 chickens had been cleared for sale.

Liu Sheng, head of Shenzhen's entry/exit inspection and quarantine authorities, said Shenzhen has strengthened inspection of the city's live chicken suppliers since March 6.

All the chicken in Shenzhen have been vaccinated against bird flu, Liu said.

Shenzhen has reduced the number of live chicken suppliers to Hong Kong to 35 from the original 135 after strict checks to ensure the chickens were safe and up to standard, Liu said.

The deadly H5N1 virus has killed more than 100 people worldwide since late 2003.

Hong Kong residents have traditionally bought chickens live and have them slaughtered, usually at the market, just prior to cooking.

The practice has been criticized for bringing people in close contact with poultry and has been blamed for aiding the spread of H5N1, which is believed to pass to humans through bird faeces and viscera.

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 SAR were in 2003, when two people were infected and one died. But 17 birds died from the disease in recent weeks.

(Shenzhen Daily March 28, 2006)