Hong Kong nature reserve shut down as bird-flu scare spreads

Hong Kong - A nature reserve popular with schoolchildren near Hong Kong's border with China was shut down Friday after a dead bird found there tested positive for the H5N1 avian-flu virus. The decision to close the Mai Po reserve came after the discovery of more than 20 dead ducks, chickens and wild birds believed to have been washed ashore from neighbouring mainland China. Six of the birds have so far tested positive for the H5N1 bird-flu virus, the strain that most easily transmits from birds and poultry to humans and which caused five deaths in China in January alone. Experts warn the sudden appearance of the dead birds on beaches and coastal areas indicates that there may be a widespread, unreported outbreak of avian flu in China. The bird found at Mai Po, which is on the coast near Hong Kong's border with China, was a grey heron discovered on February 2, a government spokesman said. 'As a precautionary measure, the Mai Po Nature Reserve will be temporarily closed to visitors for 21 days,' the spokesman said. 'We will monitor the situation closely.' The Mai Po reserve is visited daily by school parties from the city of 6.9 million and has been temporarily closed down during regional avian-flu outbreaks in recent years. China has in the past hushed up outbreaks of bird flu and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which was rampant in southern China before it spread to Hong Kong and other countries in 2003, killing hundreds of people. Officials in China have admitted that five people died of bird flu in January, two more than in the whole of 2008, but insist there is no current avian-flu outbreak among poultry or birds. The World Health Organization said China has recorded 38 human bird-flu cases, including 25 deaths, since the disease resurfaced in 2003.