The Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department announced today (February 15) that in view of notifications from the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the General Veterinary Inspectorate of Poland and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs of Korea respectively about outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in Quang Bình Province in Vietnam, Winchester District of Hampshire County in the United Kingdom (UK), CzÅ‚uchowski District of Pomorskie Region in Poland, and Goesan-gun of Chungcheongbuk-do Province and Dangjin-city of Chungcheongnam-do Province in Korea, 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 a protocol with Vietnam for the import of poultry eggs but not for poultry meat. According to the Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong imported about 33.46 million poultry eggs from Vietnam; about 90 tonnes of chilled poultry meat, about 3 770 tonnes of frozen poultry meat and about 320 000 poultry eggs from the UK; about 4 460 tonnes of frozen poultry meat and about 30.2 million poultry eggs from Poland, and about 20 tonnes of frozen poultry meat and about 840 000 poultry eggs from Korea last year.
"The CFS has contacted the Vietnamese, British, Polish 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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