万花筒 2008-12-09&12-10 香港惊现禽流感

Hong Kong is on bird flu alert. 80,000 chickens are being culled¹ (1) and no poultry² will be allowed in or out of the island for three weeks. Tests are being done on dead chickens from farms in the northeastern Yuen Long District. The Health Secretary says it appears they died from the H5 strain of bird flu.

 

As Hong Kong is now infected by bird flu, we will ban all the outputs of all chickens from our farms for 21 days and also suspend all the imports of chicken and poultry, including birds for the next 21 days. I can tell you that there will no live chicken supply for the upcoming winter festival.

 

For now health officials can't rule out the possibility. The virus might be the more deadly H5N1. That strain remains³ mainly an animal disease but has infected people before. Hong Kong has suffered two serious bouts⁴ of bird flu. Six people died in an outbreak of H5N1 in 1997, the other happened in 2001.

 

Susan Flory, Reuters.

 
 

1 culled   

v.挑选，剔除( cull的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The herd must be culled. 必须有选择地杀掉部分牧畜。 来自辞典例句
• The facts were culled from various sources. 这些事实是从各方收集到的。 来自辞典例句

2 poultry   

n.家禽，禽肉

参考例句：

• There is not much poultry in the shops. 商店里禽肉不太多。
• What do you feed the poultry on? 你们用什么饲料喂养家禽?

3 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

4 bouts   

n.拳击（或摔跤）比赛( bout的名词复数 )；一段（工作）；（尤指坏事的）一通；（疾病的）发作

参考例句：

• For much of his life he suffered from recurrent bouts of depression. 他的大半辈子反复发作抑郁症。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• It was one of fistiana's most famous championship bouts. 这是拳击界最有名的冠军赛之一。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》