A Chinese newspaper claimed yesterday that a strain of the deadly "bird flu" which has killed six people in Hong Kong has been found in China's southern province of Guangdong, just across the border from the former British colony, though local officials denied the report.The Beijing Youth Daily reported that the germs were probably being spread through the air by wild geese, and advised readers to pay attention to personal and food hygiene, and reprocess fresh and boiled poultry through heating.
The newspaper did not say whether the virus was the same strain that infected 18 people in Hong Kong or if any humans had been infected. However, an anonymous health official in Guangdong told Reuters that no case of avian flu had been found in humans in the province.
Hong Kong banned all chicken imports from Guangdong in December and slaughtered its stock of 1.4 million to eradicate the virus.
The news is a another blow to the huge poultry industry in southern China and comes just four days after Hong Kong declared an end to the high-risk period, as no new infections had been found in humans since the mass killing of poultry in mid-December.
Guangdong was making plans to subsidise chicken farms after the scare almost wiped out its poultry trade, which supplied 40 million chickens a year to the Hong Kong market. Chicken wholesale prices in Guangzhou, the provincial capital, have fallen from about £2 per kilogram to 75p.
The nearby island province of Hainan has now also banned chicken imports from Guangdong, according to yesterday's Hainan Daily. This is the first known prohibition on chicken movements within China proper. A Hainan official said the ban went into effect on Saturday as a precautionary measure.
In the first news of the bird flu published in China since the crisis began in Hong Kong, the Beijing Youth Daily said yesterday that sales of live chickens had dropped in Beijing markets, presumably because of rumours that the avian flu had reached the capital. It said migrating geese were capable of spreading the virus but that the rate of infection was low.
A group of World Health Organisation (WHO) officials is currently in southern China visiting poultry farms, markets and hospitals to search for evidence of the H5N1 virus responsible. On Friday one of the experts, Mr Daniel Lavanchy, said that the source might have been Hong Kong itself, rather than China.
The UN body said last week that the virus was found in Hong Kong ducks and geese in addition to poultry, but recommended that the territory's ducks and geese be spared as just 10 of 1,800 surveyed had tested positive.
The bird flu and regional economic chaos have made Hong Kong people less optimistic about their future, according to a survey in yesterday's South China Morning Post and Ming Pao newspaper.
One-third of Hong Kong's 6.3 million people were critical of the way the government handled the emergency. Confidence in the future dropped to 65 per cent from October's 84 per cent. Just 9 per cent of the 1,016 respondents expected their personal financial situation to improve in the coming year.