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Hong Kong has begun culling 20,000 chickens after the H7N9 bird flu virus was found in poultry imported from mainland China, the BBC reported.

All chickens at the wholesale market where the positive test took place were to be destroyed, the government said.

The government has also banned the import of live chickens from the mainland for three weeks.

H7N9 made the jump from infecting domestic chickens and ducks to infecting people in early 2013.

In China, where most of the recent cases have been, state media said live poultry trading had been halted in three cities in Zhejiang province, where 12 people have died from H7N9 this month.

Shanghai would also halt live poultry trading from 31 January for three months, state media said.

The measures come as China prepares to celebrate the Lunar New Year holiday, with hundreds of millions of people travelling across the country to spend time with relatives.

According to the World Health Organisation, cases of human H7N9 infection have been reported so far in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The virus emerged in humans in early 2013. To date there have been more than 200 cases, with more than 50 deaths.

Most of those infected reported contact with live poultry, and information so far did not support sustained human-to-human transmission, the WHO said.