On Dec. 9, the Hong Kong government reported yet another outbreak of the H5N1 virus at one of the city's largest poultry farms after 60 chickens were found dead.
Putting the city on "serious alert" for further outbreaks, Hong Kong Secretary for Food and Health York Chow Yat-ngok announced a 21-day shutdown of the local poultry industry, suspending all live chicken imports from mainland China, which supplies about half its live wholesale markets, and culling 80,000 birds from farms near the outbreak's locus.
This week's outbreak is particularly alarming because some of the chickens killed by the virus appear to have been vaccinated against it.
Yuen Kwok-yung, head of Honk Kong University's microbiology department and an expert on avian flu, warned recently that the vaccine may be approaching total failure.
That's a dire prediction given that further outbreaks are expected throughout Asia in the coming months, according to Peter Cordingley, a spokesman for the World Health Organization. -- Source
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