Hong Kong culls thousands of birds after virus found in chicken

Health workers here began slaughtering more than 17,000 chickens on Wednesday after a carcass infected with bird flu was found at a poultry market, government officials said. It was the first large-scale culling in three years. The cull was part of a series of precautionary steps being taken after the chicken carcass was found to have a "highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza virus," York Chow, Hong Kong’s secretary for food and health, said in a statement. Hong Kong officials also raised the territory’s bird flu alert to "serious," increasing monitoring for influenza at hospitals and closed the market where the carcass was discovered until Jan. 12.  Read More