February 14, 2007

Two more dead birds in Hong Kong test positive for H5N1 bird flu 

Two dead birds found on a busy street in Hong Kong have tested positive for the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, the government said, bringing the number of cases this year to 10.

A series of laboratory tests confirmed that the silver-eared mesias had H5N1, the government said in a statement Tuesday. The birds were collected last week in Mong Kok, one of Hong Kong's busiest areas.

Hong Kong has discovered sporadic cases of the disease in dead birds, but there have been no recent signs of human infections.

The territory tested 11,000 birds for the H5 strain of bird flu in 2006 and 17 were positive.

Hong Kong aggressively tests for bird flu because of the outbreak in 1997, when the disease jumped to humans and killed six people. That prompted the government to slaughter the entire poultry population of some 1.5 million birds.