HONG KONG, June 17 (Reuters) - Hong Kong is keeping a close watch on pet shops after finding the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in the faeces of a daurian starling in a city store.

In a statement issued late on Saturday, the Hong Kong government said it had closed the petshop in the Mong Kok district, put a cluster of nearby bird shops under strict surveillance, and ordered them to undergo cleansing.

The infected bird was still alive and had been taken for further tests at a government animal management centre, a government spokesman said.

Authorities collected the infected sample on June 4 under a routine avian influenza surveillance programme. Hong Kong has found bird flu in 16 wild birds this year.

Bird flu re-emerged in Hong Kong in 2003, and although there have been no human fatalities in the city, the virus has since killed 191 people around the world out of 313 known cases.

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