Experts back culling of hamsters amid Covid scare

Medical experts on Wednesday backed the government’s decision to cull more than 2,000 hamsters and other small mammals to prevent the spread of Covid-19, saying it simply does not have the capacity to isolate and test all the animals.

Authorities announced the decision after a pet shop worker in Causeway Bay was suspected to have been infected by hamsters carrying the Delta variant.

University of Hong Kong microbiologist Yuen Kwok-yung told a radio programme that he knew the planned cull would be unpopular, but he said it needed to be done urgently to cut off any invisible virus transmission chains among the hamsters.

Yuen, one of the experts advising the government on its coronavirus strategy, said authorities did not have the capacity to keep and isolate the hamsters linked to the outbreak and test them for Covid-19 every day, while preventing cross-infection among the animals.

He warned that the consequences would be dire if the Delta variant is transmitted from hamsters to humans and spread further in the community.

In particular, he said, many unvaccinated elderly people in Hong Kong would be at risk of dying.

“As scientists and doctors, we all understand we must have respect for all lives, but we have to make a decision and think clearly what’s best for the people on the basis of public health,” he said.

Yuen noted that Denmark culled 17 million minks in 2020 when the animals were found to have the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, another government advisor, David Hui of the Chinese University, agreed the cull is needed.

Speaking on an RTHK programme, he said it is common practice to cull all the animals linked to an outbreak from the perspective of public health.

“We already have evidence that some hamsters at the Causeway Bay shop have been infected, while the warehouse in Tai Po has been contaminated too. It’s normal that the whole batch of animals needs to be culled. It’s impossible to test every one of them,” he said.

“We culled the whole batch of chickens during the bird flu outbreak. We did not test every chicken and keep those that were unaffected.”