Health Worker Removes Dead Chicken.jpg (Photo : REUTERS)
Guangdong is said to have slaughtered chickens within the region after the H7N9 virus was traced in its Hong Kong exports. The virus, which is also called the avian influenza, is said to be deadly.
On Friday, authorities in Huizhou City in South China's Guangdong Province announced that at least 13,000 chickens were slaughtered at the Guangdong Lyufeng Poultry farm because its exports were found to be infected with the dangerous H7N9 virus.
Stocks from the farm were immediately culled when the virus was detected. An immediate inspection was also carried out across 1,000 farms in the city to make sure that the virus is not detected in other farms as well. Fortunately, no virus has been traced in the approximately 7.68 million chickens in these farms.
This could not be a more welcome news for Hong Kong citizens, as the city already raised its response level in hospitals from "alert" to "serious." This change in response level followed after an elderly woman was hospitalized in Hong Kong on Dec. 25 after testing positive for avian influenza or the H7N9 virus. This case is the region's first since early 2014, making more people worry. The woman came from neighboring Chinese city of Shenzhen two weeks before she was detected to have the virus.
The avian influenza virus jumped from infecting chickens and ducks to infecting people in early 2013. Since then, affected countries have been on full alert. Hong Kong, for one, already culled 20,000 chickens in Jan. 2014 after the virus was traced in poultry imported from the mainland. Live chickens were totally banned from mainland China for nearly a month.
