Hong Kong Concedes Chicken Mistakes

January 2, 1998

Filed at 3:55 p.m. EST

By The Associated Press

HONG KONG (AP) -- Hong Kong conceded Friday it had done a sloppy job killing off its 1.3 million chickens, following sightings of bedraggled birds that somehow survived the slaughter and of dogs scampering off with carcasses.

Scientists were testing a sampling of rats, cats and dogs to see whether other animals could have picked up the bird-flu virus from chewing on chicken corpses that were supposed to have been buried.

Television footage showed some chickens still strutting around after enduring what was supposed to have been a fatal gassing by carbon dioxide inside plastic bags.

The remains of some dead chickens were left in trash bags to fester instead of being carted off to a landfill. TV showed dogs pulling the possibly tainted carcasses out of sacks and running away with their finds, tails wagging.

Hong Kong leader Tung Chee-hwa, who won plaudits for his management of Hong Kong's tricky political transition to Chinese rule, was once again in the thick of it.

Tung said shortages of staff and equipment hindered the government's round-the-clock effort this week to stop the mysterious spread of bird flu to humans by killing off all chickens, which are believed to carry the virus.

``Improvement needs to be made, and we are going to make these improvements,'' Tung said after a private emergency meeting of the Executive Council, his top advisory board. ``We are looking at these things very urgently.''

Civil servants slaughtered roughly 1.3 million chickens between Monday and Wednesday, trying to stamp out the A H5N1 virus that has sickened at least 15 people -- a new case was confirmed Friday -- and killed four. Six possible cases also have been reported.

The outbreak is the first time the bird flu has turned up in humans, and health officials are still trying to figure out just how the virus made the leap from fowl to people.

For three days, government workers stuffed hundreds of thousands of live chickens into bags and then pumped the bags full of gas, slitting birds' throats when they ran out of gas. The government has also banned the import of new chickens.

But one TV network showed a chicken peeking out from a torn garbage bag at a dump site. Another bird was seen wandering nearby.

Other photos depicted cages of live chickens on small farms, their owners still awaiting the arrival of government slaughter teams. And carcasses spilled from torn garbage bags that has been left on farms, despite a plan to cart them off to landfills.

Residents or rural areas complained that dogs and rats had gotten to the chicken carcasses, prompting fears they might spread the virus.

Dr. Margaret Chan, health director, acknowledged that the killing and disposal of chickens ``could be done better.''

The Agriculture and Fisheries Department, which oversaw the slaughter at farms, said it would finish up its work and look into complaints that chickens were left alive and carcasses were unaccounted for. The department set up a hot line for such reports.

Seeking to demonstrate the enormity of the task, the government issued statistics on the effort thus far: Nearly 1,300 tons of carcasses -- 95 percent of the total -- had been buried at landfills by Thursday, a statement said.

About 1,500 employees using 250 vehicles were transporting remains to landfills, and were ``working very hard'' to finish the job, the government said.

A government employee who took part in the slaughter was being tested for the bird flu after developing pneumonia, but initial results were negative, the Hospital Authority said.