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In response to media enquiries on the recent decrease in the supply of imported chilled ducks and geese from the Mainland, a spokesman for the Health, Welfare and Food Bureau said today (January 25) that the Mainland had been maintaining stringent surveillance on food hygiene and safety for supply to Hong Kong.

"No problematic food sample was found among the several millions of imported chilled ducks and geese in the past.

" Hong Kong has all along been maintaining good and cooperative relationship with the State as well as the Guangdong inspection and quarantine authorities. The two places have routine communication and cooperation mechanism to ensure the safety of food supply to Hong Kong," the spokesman said.

According to the Guangdong authority, there had been a surge in the demand for food animals such as pigs, chickens, ducks and geese in both the Mainland and Hong Kong markets with the advent of Lunar New Year.

As winter months are always the high season for outbreak of infectious diseases, the Mainland authorities have stepped up inspection of the farms that are supplying poultry to Hong Kong and enhanced laboratory testing with more samples taken to ensure the safety and quality of food supply to Hong Kong.

The spokesman said that Hong Kong and the Mainland had stringent surveillance on avian influenza. As live poultry incurs a higher risk of spreading the avian influenza virus, the inspection and quarantine authorities of the two places accorded top priority to the monitoring of live poultry supplying to Hong Kong.

From the angle of risk management, the Mainland authorities had enhanced the inspection and quarantine procedures during this high season for avian influenza. Correspondingly, Hong Kong was also actively monitoring the safety of food supply to Hong Kong to cope with the increasing demand for live poultry before the Lunar New Year.

The spokesman said Hong Kong had imported over three million chilled ducks and geese since the resumption of import of the chilled waterfowls from the Mainland on June 21, 2004.

Under the routine food surveillance programme, the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department had recently received the laboratory report that confirmed one of the chilled geese samples had been contaminated by a minute level of H5 virus following testing. The cause of contamination was not known. The Health, Welfare and Food Bureau had followed up the case with the concerned Mainland authorities and sent the sample to the Mainland for re-testing at the latter's request. It was understood that the result of the re-test was negative. To be cautious, the Mainland authorities had taken 120 samples from the farm concerned for further testing. All the test results were negative.

The spokesman said: "As ducks and geese are natural carriers of the avian influenza virus, it is not unusual to find avian influenza virus on chilled ducks and geese.

"Avian influenza virus will only survive and multiply in live poultry but not in the carcasses. At present, Hong Kong does not import any live ducks and geese. The chance of contracting avian influenza by consuming chilled ducks and geese is negligible from the food safety perspective.

"A consultancy study report conducted by international experts, commissioned by the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department, earlier shows that chilled ducks and geese pose extremely low risk to the public. The Centre for Health Protection also supports the views of the experts.

"In view of the development of avian influenza in Southeast Asian countries, members of the public should pay extra attention to personal hygiene to guard against the disease. People should remember to wash hands after touching live birds or handling poultry meat. As heat can kill the virus, members of the public are advised to cook the poultry meat thoroughly before eating."

Ends/Tuesday, January 25, 2005

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