SHANGHAI/HONG KONG: Chinese authorities slaughtered over 20,000 birds at a poultry market in Shanghai yesterday as the death toll from a new strain of bird flu mounted to seven, spreading concern overseas and sparking a sell-off in airline shares in Europe and Hong Kong.
The government in Shanghai said the Huhuai market for live birds had been shut down and 20,536 birds culled after authorities detected the H7N9 virus from samples of pigeons in the market. Other poultry markets in the city will be closed down from today.
All the 14 reported infections from the H7N9 bird flu strain have been in eastern China and at least four of the dead were in Shanghai.
The latest death was of a 64-year-old man in Zhejiang province, state news agency Xinhua said, adding that none of the 55 people who had close contact with him had shown symptoms of infection.
Airline shares tumbled in European markets on fears the outbreak could become widespread. The STOXX Europe 600 travel and leisure sector index fell as much as 1.6 percent, the biggest laggard among European sectors.
“The bird flu issue is at the top of people’s minds now,” said Alfred Chan, chief dealer at Cheer Pearl Investment in Hong Kong.
In the US, the White House said it was monitoring the situation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had started work on a vaccine if it was needed. It would take five to six months to begin commercial production.
First case in HK
A seven-year-old Hong Kong girl is being tested for the H7N9 flu virus after she returned from Shanghai and showed flu-like symptoms, officials said yesterday in the city’s first suspected case.
Health officials said the result of the test was expected later yesterday, coming after the virus killed six in China and prompted the closure of all live poultry markets in Shanghai as well as the culling of over 20,000 birds.
“She has travelled to Shanghai in late March and had contact with poultry. We have quarantined her,” the Hospital Authority’s chief infection control officer Dominic Tsang said.
He would not give details of the girl’s condition other than that she was displaying flu-like symptoms, including fever.
Health Minister Ko Wing-man said the city would step up random testing in local poultry and mobilise additional staff to carry out body temperature checks on inbound travellers at the border. Agencies
