HONG KONG: The Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department announced today (November 15) that in view of notifications from the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) about outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5N8 avian influenza in Bács-Kiskun in Hungary, Vorarlberg in Austria and Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, it has banned the import of poultry meat and products (including poultry eggs) from the three areas concerned with immediate effect to protect public health in Hong Kong.
A CFS spokesman said that Hong Kong imported about 2 900 tonnes of frozen and chilled poultry meat from Hungary, and about 7 000 tonnes of frozen poultry meat and 1.7 million poultry eggs from Germany, in the first nine months of this year. However, no poultry meat or poultry eggs were imported from Austria in the same period. “The CFS has contacted the Hungarian, Austrian and German authorities over the issue and will closely monitor information issued by the OIE on avian influenza outbreaks in the three countries. Appropriate action will be taken in response to the development of the situation,” the spokesman said.
