Fowl play
on december 29, 1997, Hong Kong’s administration started slaughtering all poultry in the region in an effort to stop the spread of the new strain of influenza virus, a (h5n 1). By January 3, 1998, several unanswered questions remained scattered amidst the rotting carcasses of more than a million birds. Questions regarding the spread of the virus in humans, the possibility of an epidemic, the effectiveness of mass slaughter of poultry in the region and its consequences.
The mass culling of poultry has drawn flak from various quarters, particularly on the cost of the exercise and the way it was carried out. The operation was conducted by personnel from seven governmental departments. After being dis infected, carcasses were wrapped in plastic bags and buried in landfills. Although the government had claimed that the entire operation would be over in a day, five days after it started, health workers were still left with about 68 tonnes of dead meat. Officials admitted that the cull had been conducted shabbily. Lessie Wei Chui Kit-Yee, director of agriculture and fisheries, and the chief official behind the mass slaughter, offered to resign on January 1 after thousands of birds escaped the cull and many carcasses could not be disposed of. “I am not finding excuses. Our records showed that there were 161 chicken farms. But 68 new farms were discovered during the operation,” she said.
Buddhist and Taoist leaders in Hong Kong declared that they would perform religious rites for the more than 1.2 million chickens that were slaughtered. Reverend Yong Xing was reported to have said that the rites were to “appease” the dead chickens because “mass slaughter of animals is an unlucky omen”.
Though this had little to do with the spread of the disease, the panic in Hong Kong following the death of four people infected with a (h5n 1) bodes ill and has the portents of a global health disaster. Although a greater part of the popu lation remains unaffected, the avian flu, as it has been called in the media, is causing unprecedented concern in medical circles. It touches on an aspect of day-to-day existence, the consumption of meat and poultry.
Strange turn The outbreak of a (h5n 1) infections appeared harmless in the beginning. In April 1997, infected chicken at the Yeun Long farm in Hong Kong began ignoring food, slumped listlessly, and died in a few days. The infection then spread rapidly and killed entire poultry populations in some farms. On May 11, 1997, a three-year-old boy, whose name remains undisclosed, fell ill. He was admitted to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital on May 15 with symptoms of severe pneumonia and Reye’s syndrome. Characterised by inflammation of the brain, Reye’s syndrome occasionally affects children who have been exposed to a flu or chickenpox virus. The boy died 10 days later.
For three months, health authorities failed to identify the cause of his death despite an autopsy. Margaret Chan Fung, Hong Kong’s director of health, sent cultures of the virus obtained after a throat biopsy to three international laboratories, including the Center for Disease Control (cdc) in Atlanta, Georgia, usa’s premier medical research facility. The agriculture and fisheries department of Hong Kong had also sent samples of infected poultry to another laboratory in the us that ascertained the presence of a (h5n 1).
Researchers at the Atlanta laboratories, after exhausting all possibilities of infection by viruses known to infect humans, found that the samples matched the influenza virus strain that infects birds, pigs and horses. On August 18, cdc confirmed the presence of a (h5n 1) in the viral cultures. This was the first confirmed case of a (h5n 1) infection in a human being. “There is no indication at present that this strain has spread from person to person. There is, consequently, no need for special measures as of today,” Daniel Lavanchy of the World Health Organization’s (who’s) division of emerging and other communicable diseases’ surveillance and control at Geneva was reported to have said, following the report from cdc (Down To Earth , Vol 6, No 12).
However, on December 6, a 54-year-old man became the second victim of a (h5n 1) when he died of viral pneumonia. This was followed by the death of a 13-year-old girl and a 60-year-old Filipino woman. In the third and fourth weeks of December, more cases started coming to light, and sent alarm bells ringing across Southeast Asia. The Malaysian government declared that it was keeping a close watch on the situation. The province of Sabah in Malaysia imposed a total ban on the import of livestock, poultry and related products from Hong Kong. The “outbreak” could not have occurred at a more importune time than Christmas for thousands of small-scale traders. Chicken