The Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department announced today (November 23) that in view of notifications from the Ministry of Agriculture of Hungary, the General Veterinary Inspectorate of Poland and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) respectively about outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in Békés County and Csongrád-Csanád County in Hungary, in Turecki District of Wielkopolskie Region in Poland and in County Monaghan in Ireland, 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 Hong Kong has currently established protocols with Hungary and Ireland for the import of poultry meat but not for poultry eggs. According to the Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong imported about 730 tonnes of frozen poultry meat from Hungary, about 4 070 tonnes of frozen poultry meat and about 24.82 million poultry eggs from Poland and about 300 tonnes of frozen poultry meat from Ireland in the first nine months of this year.
"The CFS has contacted the Hungarian, Polish and Irish 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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