Beijing’s live poultry markets ordered to close

AUTHORITIES ordered all live poultry markets in China’s capital Beijing to close immediately and went door-to-door seizing chickens and ducks from private homes, as the government dramatically beefed up its fight against bird flu yesterday.

Beijing announced that six million birds had been slaughtered around the site of China’s most recent bird flu outbreak, and the World Health Organisation has been asked to help in the reopened investigation of the country’s possible first human cases of the virus.

Beijing on Sunday reopened an investigation into whether bird flu killed a 12-year-old girl and caused two people to fall ill last month in cases originally ruled not to be H5N1.

WHO spokesman Roy Wadia yesterday said discussions were underway with Chinese officials about what role the agency could play in the probe.

China has had no confirmed human infections, but has imposed increasingly strict measures after warnings a human case was inevitable if China can’t prevent outbreaks among its 5.2 billion chickens, ducks and other poultry.

The latest outbreak, in Liaoning province, east of Beijing, saw all birds within two miles of the infection site destroyed.

In Shanghai, China’s largest city, sales of live ducks, quail and other birds have been banned, officials said.