BIRD FLU SCARE: Closures deal blow to owners, shoppers

Houston, USA--Four markets have been temporarily closed in Houston because of possible contamination from a strain of bird flu carried by chickens in Gonzales County. News of the flu has come as a blow not only to the owners of those markets, but also to their many customers from Africa and Asia.

Though Americans might turn queasy seeing their dinner killed, some immigrants say they are more repulsed by the thought of taking home a frozen bird of uncertain provenance sold to them in wrapped in plastic.

"Unlike Americans, foreigners are used to eating something fresh," said Nana Amponsah, a native of Ghana who owns Ideal Poultry, a live bird and goat market just outside the Houston city limits in southwest Harris County. Amponsah said state officials arrived last week and told him to get rid of the live chickens housed at his market.

Though the chickens at Ideal Poultry tested negative for the flu, Amponsah said he was told that poultry at a nearby market was suspected of carrying the disease, and his live-bird market needed to be temporarily shuttered because it was at risk.

Less than a mile away, a team of workers who identified themselves as state animal health division representatives used spray guns to clean Tai Hung Farms, a poultry market on Old Richmond Road. Representatives of the market did not answer the phone, and the front gate was chained and locked.

A sign out front, posted in English and Spanish, said: "We're sorry. No chickens today."

Though no birds in Houston have been found to carry the bird flu, some ducks sold here may have come in contact with birds from a farm in Gonzales County where the flu was found, said Doug Smith, an agent with the Harris County Agriculture Extension.


Smith estimated that the numbers of birds destroyed in Houston was "a handful."


"We're not talking about thousands," he said.


The flu carried by the birds in Gonzales County has not been shown to infect humans, and it is not related to the bird flu epidemic now sweeping Asia. The virus is normally killed by cooking the meat.


But raw animals may present more of a risk, officials say. Some Asians eat a dish, known in Vietnamese as Tiet Canh, that contains congealed chunks of raw duck and chicken blood.

In the days before refrigeration, animals were sold live at markets and slaughtered before consumption. Even with refrigeration, people in some parts of the world say they prefer to do it the old-fashioned way.


"I don't know anything about a frozen chicken," said Forsac. "I don't know when it was killed, or how or why."


The bird might have been sick before being killed and frozen, he noted.


State officials on Wednesday refused to identify the four markets closed in Houston to protect the business owners.


A spokeswoman at the Texas Animal Health Commission in Austin, who identified herself only as Lisa, said there was no need to inform the public of which markets were closed because none of the birds were sold live.

"These are not markets where you go buy a live bird and take it home," the spokeswoman said in a telephone interview. "These are markets where you go pick a bird and they kill it and cut it up for you."


Because the birds are slaughtered before they are sold, there is no risk the virus spread beyond the markets, she said.


But Wanda Vosmus, a Puerto Rican shopper at Ideal Poultry, said she has frequently bought live birds from Houston markets to take them home and kill them herself.


Like Forsac, Vosmus said she much prefers eating chickens and goats that she has seen alive.


"It is so much better when it's fresh," she said.