The Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department announced today (December 15) that in view of notifications from the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs of Korea about outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5N8 avian influenza in County Wicklow in Ireland, and in Gimpo-si of Gyeonggi-do Province in Korea respectively, the CFS has instructed the trade to suspend the import of poultry meat and products (including poultry eggs) from the above-mentioned areas with immediate effect to protect public health in Hong Kong.
A CFS spokesman said that according to the Census and Statistics Department, in the first nine months of this year, Hong Kong imported about 630 tonnes of frozen poultry meat from Ireland, and about 740 tonnes of chilled and frozen poultry meat and about 8.9 million poultry eggs from Korea.
"The CFS has contacted the Irish and Korean authorities over the issues and will closely monitor information issued by the OIE and the relevant authorities on the avian influenza outbreaks. Appropriate action will be taken in response to the development of the situation," the spokesman said.
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