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_|Hong Kong PRC SAR: H5N1 IN CHICKEN|_

Re: _|Hong Kong PRC SAR: H5N1 IN CHICKEN|_

80% of chicken traders to accept compensation

About 80% of chicken traders to accept the closure of the compensation package.
(Sing Tao Daily reports) throughout the poultry retailers will be the Alliance of the General Assembly, to vote on whether to accept the Government's ultimate compensation, or choose to resume the sale of live chickens but to "clear day" mode operation. Hong Kong Poultry Wholesalers and Retailers Association Chairman Huang Weiquan, attended by about 80% of chicken traders to accept the Government's closure of compensation package, but most people will try to July 2 in the "day-" operating .

Huang Weiquan said that about 80% of the chicken traders in the division, are willing to accept the compensation package, but still have to discuss with the compensation package, they do not want to disclose detailed information, so as not to affect the negotiations. He revealed that "most of chicken traders will try to July 2 in the 'day-trading' way to solve the problem of hoarding of live chickens from local farms, but unknown whether the wholesale and transportation industry to meet."

In addition, the authorities that some did not do a good job cleaning chicken stalls, Huang Weiquan request that the Government is too harsh, He said: "I must stress that no dead chickens in Hong Kong, but there are four markets that swab the avian flu, so I hope the Government will relax the standards of the markets clean." He was referring to the chicken stalls in the "three nos" (no chicken feather, no swab , No Jixue) the requirement is too harsh and urged the Government to close unlicensed, must be cooperation between the two sides, said if the Government insists on strict standards, did not rule out some chicken stalls refused to wash and let the chicken farms hoarding.

Poultry Wholesalers president Xu of a public corporation and wholesalers have also arrived at the scene to the chicken traders "to a few Street", and Xu were college today will mean more and more than 10 retail industry in Macao, the understanding of local day-chicken The practices and measures, he said that Macao's traders to transport chickens to motorcycles, whether Hong Kong can follow the example. Xu revealed that 48 stalls wholesalers, Liangdang not every day that the chicken-measures.
2008-06-29
http://translate.google.com/transla...html&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=zh-CN&sl=es&tl=en&tl=en
 
Re: _|Hong Kong PRC SAR: H5N1 IN CHICKEN|_

FEHD reminds live poultry retailers to cleanse premises to resume business
June 30 2008, 14.14.25

The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) today (June 30) reminded tenants of market stalls and operators of fresh provision shops selling live poultry that they had to thoroughly clean and disinfect their premises before resuming business.

Following the detection of the H5N1 avian influenza virus in environmental swabs collected from four markets, the Director of Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation declared on June 11 all retail outlets selling live poultry infected places and ordered the culling and disposing of all poultry therein.

"All market stalls and fresh provision shops selling live poultry should be thoroughly cleansed and disinfected to the satisfaction of government veterinary officers before resuming business," an FEHD spokesman said.

"As at 5pm today, hygiene conditions in 169 market stalls (in 44 markets) and 53 fresh provision shops have met the required standard for resuming business on July 2."

The spokesman said all retailers resuming business should comply with the new requirement of no overnight presence of live poultry at the retail outlets between 8pm and 5am the next day.

Retailers have to slaughter any live poultry in their premises by 8pm each day and then cleanse and disinfect the premises thoroughly.

Offenders could have their permission revoked, and be subject to a maximum penalty of $50,000 and six months imprisonment.
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http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/200806/30/P200806300273.htm
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Re: _|Hong Kong PRC SAR: H5N1 IN CHICKEN|_

Local farms to send chickens to wholesale market tomorrow (with photos)
June 30 2008, 12.25.15

Arrangements will be made tomorrow to facilitate local farms sending chickens to the wholesale market, a spokesman for the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) said today (June 30).

Supply of live chickens in retail outlets will resume on Wednesday (July 2).

Following the thorough cleaning in the wholesale market, local farmers will be allowed to send their chickens to the wholesale market tomorrow night (July 1).

"AFCD staff have been collecting samples and conducting tests for the chickens in local farms to make sure that those sent to the wholesale markets are free from H5 avian influenza infection," he said.

The wholesale market has already been thoroughly cleaned and disinfected.

Trading at the wholesale market will resume early Wednesday morning.

The AFCD will continue to inspect local chicken farms to ensure that all the required bio-security measures are in place.

The department will also tightly monitor precautionary measures at the wholesale market against avian influenza, including cleaning and disinfection.

"We will remain vigilant in our surveillance of avian influenza in the local chicken farms," the spokesman said.
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http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/200806/30/P200806300218.htm
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Re: _|Hong Kong PRC SAR: H5N1 IN CHICKEN|_

Hong Kong to resume chicken sales after H5N1 scare
02 Jul 2008 06:01:35 GMT
Source: Reuters

HONG KONG, July 2 (Reuters) -

Hong Kong allowed live poultry sales and imports to resume on Wednesday after a 21-day ban sparked by a bird-flu scare, but stricter measures involve daily culls of unsold birds to minimise the risk of future outbreaks.

Residents flocked to wet markets across the territory to pick up live chickens, and local TV reported that many chicken stalls had sold out by noon given the reduced supply.

The discovery in June of birds infected with the H5N1 avian influenza virus in four wet markets across Hong Kong led to the culling of thousands of fowl at all retail markets. A 21-day ban on live poultry sales and imports was then imposed.

Since the latest avian flu outbreak, Hong Kong authorities have tightened biosecurity measures further at local markets -- where squawking caged fowl are handpicked then slaughtered on the spot for customers, in sometimes unhygienic conditions.

Hong Kong poultry traders will no longer be allowed to keep live birds in stalls overnight. They must slaughter all remaining birds each night and cleanse and disinfect their cages daily.

Authorities have also stepped up efforts to overhaul the live poultry trade -- offering a compensation package of more than HK$1 billion ($128 million) to buy out poultry traders including farmers, wholesalers and retailers.

In its place, a centralised slaughtering centre has been proposed.

Before the ban, Hong Kong's daily chicken imports totalled about 20,000 chickens from China, and another 15,000-20,000 from local farms, traders and officials have said.

Experts have long warned that the H5N1 bird flu virus could mutate into a form that is easily transmitted from person to person. This could trigger a pandemic, killing millions of people.

Hong Kong has in the past carried out mass culls of poultry to try to control bird flu outbreaks, notably in 1997, when more than 1.4 million poultry were slaughtered and six people died from H5N1 infection.

Fears of the spread of infectious disease have run high since 2003, when an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) hit the city of nearly 7 million people.

(Reporting by James Pomfret; Editing by Ben Tan)
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http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/HKG261055.htm
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Re: _|Hong Kong PRC SAR: H5N1 IN CHICKEN|_

Chickens vaccinated for fear of hidden difficult to detect infection
June 13, 2008

[Ming Pao - the four markets throughout the territory of 7 chicken stalls found the H5N1 avian influenza virus, but also advance the chicken stalls, "reported" no dead chickens or sick chickens,  conditions vary with the past, the authorities are now Through mutation of the virus, chickens and dead chickens is not immune to the direction of the three surveys, microbiologists have pointed out that after the vaccination of chickens to a certain degree of protection possible "hidden infection", that is not detoxification disease incidence, It is difficult to monitor category, increasing to-human crisis.

Food and Health Secretary York Chow said authorities are investigating three chicken manure on the avian flu virus but reported no dead chickens in question, First virus itself has not changed; Second, the immunity of chickens has changed, so that they bring No virus disease; three chickens with the virus are not aware that the industry has not reported.

Manure containing the virus reported no dead chickens on the direction of three investigations


Authorities are currently in the market to find the H5N1 avian influenza gene sequencing and found no mutation of the virus have any intelligence , also found that the chickens did not have immunity to change.

Zhongshan University professor in the Department of Microbiology, said Chen Jixiang, birds of avian influenza virus after infection without symptoms, and may be "hidden infection", this situation  on the most commonly appear in teals, after infection without symptoms, but the virus is in The propagation of their intestine, also from the feces of infectious virus, but fewer chickens there.

Chickens fight the bird flu vaccine after a certain antibody protection, the "hidden infection," the problem of chickens is not, but Chen said frankly that, if human exposure from "diseased chickens stealth" virus from the feces, will be the same in Strokes, but not with human intelligence  diseased or dead chickens on the alert, can only be learned through the dangerous virus testing. "This is also when scientists discuss whether vaccination of chickens should be the one worrying."

Yuen Kwok-yung: gene sequencing of variation

Hong Kong University professor of microbiology Yuen Kwok-yung said, Sham Shui Po On Road Market  found the H5N1 bird flu virus, the Asian region and the genetic sequencing of the bird flu virus found the same, it is the local retail chicken stalls in a chicken with H5N1, not the vaccine Failure, or else there should be a large-scale explosive epidemic.

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mingpaonews.com%2F&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=zh-CN&sl=es&tl=en&tl=en

Thank you Commonground for this original translation on June 13. It seems that Yuen Kwok-yung is pointing out that the chickens have H5N1 but that the vaccine used is still effective or a "explosive" epidemic would have occurred.

Interesting.
 
Re: _|Hong Kong PRC SAR: H5N1 IN CHICKEN|_

Hong Kong expert warns flu vaccine for chickens losing efficacy

Tue, 08 Jul 2008

Hong Kong - A vaccine used to stop outbreaks of the deadly bird flu virus in chickens in Hong Kong for the last seven years is losing its effectiveness, a leading microbiologist warned Tuesday. Professor Yuen Kwok-yung said the vaccine, which protects chicken from the H5 strain of the virus, is becoming less effective and the city risks further outbreaks because total failure is inevitable.

The head of microbiology at the University of Hong Kong told the South China Morning Post the virus was mutating and shifting away from the Fujian strain of H5N2 that it was developed for.

His warning follows an outbreak of H5N1 virus in four wet markets in Hong Kong in June, the first in years in the former British colony.

Yuen, who is part of a team investigating the outbreak, said the city must get rid of all live chickens in markets before the vaccine becomes completely ineffective.

He said tests showed that in 2005 vaccine was producing only a quarter of the antibodies to protect against the virus compared to the level produced by the same vaccine in 2001.

He said some chickens showed an antibodies level at the "alarm stage" which meant the protection was minimal.

"It is only a matter of time before it will lose its protection," said Yuen, who is urging the government to ban all live chicken markets in Hong Kong before the vaccine, developed in the Netherlands, becomes ineffective.

"It takes time for the manufacturers to produce new vaccines," he said. "Hong Kong is taking its own risk if it still has live chickens in the markets."

The government has yet to identify the source of the latest outbreak which resulted in the culling of thousands of chickens and led to tighter restrictions on imports and a ban on overnight stocking of live chickens in markets.

Live chicken sales resumed July 2 after a 21-day ban on import and sales following the outbreak.

Hong Kong was the scene of the first outbreak of bird flu to jump the species barrier in modern times when six people died and 12 others were infected in 1997.


Tough new hygiene and monitoring controls were introduced and Hong Kong has been spared further human infections from the recent bird flu cases across the Asia region.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/...flu-vaccine-for-chickens-losing-efficacy.html
 
Re: _|Hong Kong PRC SAR: H5N1 IN CHICKEN|_

....."It is only a matter of time before it will lose its protection," ....

It's interesting that they don't propose utilizing a newly formulated H5Nx vaccine, i.e, with different genetic makeup to more closely match the circulating strain.

Did they perhaps mean to say the failure of the policy of widespread poultry vaccination?

Remember that USDA recommends vaccination only for ring vaccination, after a thorough cull of infected flocks, NOT general "preventative" vaccination.

.
 
Re: _|Hong Kong PRC SAR: H5N1 IN CHICKEN|_

It seems Professor Yuen Kwok-yung has changed his opinion in the last 3 weeks according to posts #147 and #148.
 
Re: _|Hong Kong PRC SAR: H5N1 IN CHICKEN|_

Would not be surprised if this is H5N2, Niman. SE Asia (Hong Kong, for example) has been advocating use of inactivated H5N2 as a broad-action H5 poultry vaccine against H5N1.

Maybe it wasn't inactivated enough and this is an accidentally introduced infection?
 
Re: _|Hong Kong PRC SAR: H5N1 IN CHICKEN|_

Would not be surprised if this is H5N2, Niman. SE Asia (Hong Kong, for example) has been advocating use of inactivated H5N2 as a broad-action H5 poultry vaccine against H5N1.

Maybe it wasn't inactivated enough and this is an accidentally introduced infection?
Don't think so. This is a reporting error.
 
Re: _|Hong Kong PRC SAR: H5N1 IN CHICKEN|_

The port big research discovery chicken influenza vaccine reduces effectively
2008-07-08 22:07


[on.cc special news]The Hong Kong University Microorganism Department studied the discovery, the chicken influenza vaccine recent years' potency only reduced greatly, 01 year vaccine has the full protection strength, but 05 years, vaccine effectiveness falls 75%, is only left over 25% protection strength. Department head Yuan Guoyong indicated that 05 year vaccine potency index starts to drop, demonstrated vaccine effectiveness has the question, after the chicken only vaccinates the vaccine, the virus causes the immune body starts to drop, therefore long-term must make the full chicken separation, moreover the resident must be clear, the chicken only not just disseminates the H5N1 virus, also possibly disseminates other virus, which viral what infection person, still didn't know now. The port senior general on the present popular influenza virus might, as well as carries on the live chicken experiment to the existing vaccine effectiveness, estimated that in the short-term will have the result.:tiphat: http://svsurl.systransoft.com/?t=ou...ask=11d1def534ea1be0-75bbd38-11afa662a18-3bae
 
Re: _|Hong Kong PRC SAR: H5N1 IN CHICKEN|_

Response level for avian influenza down to alert level
July 9 2008, 9.53.00

The Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, today (July 9) announced that on the advice of the Director of Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation and the Director of Food and Environmental Hygiene, he had decided to scale down the response level for avian influenza from "serious" to "alert".

After the detection of H5N1 avian influenza in environmental samples collected from poultry stalls in Po On Road Market, Sham Shui Po, on June 7, the Government had raised the response level to serious.

With more environmental samples from three other retail markets found to have the virus on June 11, live chicken trading in Hong Kong was suspended for 21 days.

The Government implemented a ban on overnight stocking of live poultry in retail outlets when live chicken sales resumed on July 2.

All live chickens at retail outlets are slaughtered before 8pm every day and cages and poultry slaughtering equipment are thoroughly cleaned and disinfected.

This could help reduce the risk of avian influenza outbreaks by preventing the accumulation of the virus in retail outlets.

The ban has been in place for a week and market operations have been generally smooth.

The environmental hygiene of the retail outlets has also improved.

The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department has collected samples from chicken farms, the wholesale market and retail outlets and tested them for avian influenza H5N1. All results were negative.

"The Government has decided to scale down the response level after assessing the present risk posed by avian influenza, taking into account the above factors," Dr Chow said.

He appealed to the public to remain vigilant and pay attention to personal and environmental hygiene in order to prevent avian influenza.
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http://www.info.gov.hk/gia/general/200807/09/P200807090216.htm
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Re: _|Hong Kong PRC SAR: H5N1 IN CHICKEN|_

It seems Professor Yuen Kwok-yung has changed his opinion in the last 3 weeks according to posts #147 and #148.

Could be a matter of interpretation:

I read the translation of the last sentence in post # 147 like this:

we should not have a vaccine failure, a vaccine failure could cause an explosive epidemic.

Reading like that seems to be in line with post # 148 .
 
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