Mao-like solution for China bird flu

HONG KONG: In the 1950s, one of the most extraordinary mass extermination campaigns was unleashed in China when Chairman Mao Zedong declared a war on sparrows, which were eating up foodgrains meant for impoverished villagers. Across China, villagers would rush out onto the fields banging pots and pans, causing the birds to take wing. But scaring away the birds obviously wasn’t good enough: the villagers would therefore keep banging away on their pots and pans, forcing the frightened birds to flutter about until, weak with exhaustion, they would literally drop dead from the skies.

The extermination of millions of birds led to one of the most disastrous famines in the country’s history. That’s because when the sparrows, a critical link in the food chain, were erased, swarms of locusts – which would otherwise have been eaten up by the sparrows – overran the fields and the crops. Many millions of people died of starvation.

Today, another kind of mass extermination of birds is under way in China — and in Hong Kong — in response to the heightened risk of avian flu. Quite literally, millions of poultry products have been culled in the past two years, and with every manifestation of the dreaded mutant H5N1 virus, the death warrants of many more birds get signed.

And now, Hong Kong Customs officers at all borders — land, sea and air — are keeping a hawk-eye out for lethal contraband of poultry products. Ever since the discovery over the last fortnight of three dead birds infected with H5N1 in Hong Kong — including a chicken that had been smuggled across the border from mainland China — a wary administration has been stepping up inspections of “backyard chicken farms” and intensifying vigil on the borders. “Frontline Customs officers have been put on high alert and examination of suspicious imported cargo and baggage has been increased,” said Assistant Commissioner (Boundary and Ports) Chow Kwong.

As part of the crackdown on smuggling of poultry, officers are also subjecting incoming travellers’ baggage to more rigorous examination. Under the law, anyone bringing in meat and poultry without a certificate will face a fine of HK$50,000 and six months’ jail. Bringing in birds without a valid health certificate will invite a fine of HK$25,000.

But the heightened vigil on the border is also a tacit admission that officials in China’s border provinces are perhaps downplaying the extent of the disease in the mainland. It’s been known to happen: in 2003, for instance, China downplayed —some would say covered up — the incidence of SARS, and came clean only after an international outcry. But by then the epidemic has spread to Hong Kong and from there onto other Southeast Asian destinations and even to Canada.