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In view of a confirmed case of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 in the city of Dalian, Liaoning Province, the Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department today (April 26) announced that the import of poultry products, including poultry eggs and frozen poultry, from Liaoning Province would be suspended for 21 days with immediate effect.
A spokesman for the CFS said the Government had developed a zonal approach policy as a general guideline for import control measures to control the import of live poultry and poultry products, including poultry eggs and chilled and frozen poultry, in dealing with different outbreak scenarios of HPAI in Guangdong Province as well as provinces outside Guangdong.
"Under the zonal approach policy, in the event of a confirmed case of HPAI poultry infection in any province outside Guangdong Province where there is no export of live poultry to Hong Kong, we will suspend the import of poultry products from the province for at least 21 days," the spokesman said.
"We will closely monitor the latest situation about the avian flu case in Liaoning Province and take appropriate follow-up action," he added.
Last year, Hong Kong imported about 28,000 tonnes of frozen poultry and 103 million poultry eggs from Liaoning Province. At present, there is no registered farm in Liaoning Province supplying live poultry and no export of chilled poultry to Hong Kong.
Ends/Thursday, April 26, 2012
Issued at HKT 14:01
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