Hong Kong battling with bird flu outbreak

An outbreak of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus in poultry in Hong Kong food markets has led to the culling of live poultry across the city.

According to government officials the bird flu virus was detected at a poultry stall in one of Hong Kong's numerous wet markets and as a result 2,700 birds were culled.

But the virus has now spread among the island's poultry population and mass cullings have been conducted as a precaution to try to control the spread of the virus.

Officials say that all wet market stores and fresh food stores selling live poultry are now infected areas and all poultry will be culled, but poultry on local farms is not said to be affected.

Officials say mass the cullings are a necessary precaution but no people have been infected and they are trying to trace the source of the outbreak.

The outbreak of the virus, the first in Hong Kong wet markets in five years, has prompted Hong Kong authorities to suspend live poultry imports from mainland China.

This year there have been a number of outbreaks of bird flu among migrating birds in the territory, which are the suspected culprits in spreading the disease worldwide and it was in Hong Kong that the world's first reported major bird flu outbreak among humans occurred in 1997, which killed six people.

Since 2003 the lethal H5N1 strain has killed more than 240 people and decimated poultry flocks around the world and the major concern is that the virus will eventually mutate into a form that is easily transmissible between humans, triggering a global pandemic.