The Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department announced today (October 7) that in view of a notification from the Ministry of Agriculture of Hungary and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) about outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok County in Hungary and Lincoln County of the State of Idaho in the United States (US) respectively, 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 Hungary for the import of poultry meat but not for poultry eggs. According to the Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong imported about 40 tonnes of frozen poultry meat from Hungary, and about 40 950 tonnes of chilled and frozen poultry meat and about 13.86 million poultry eggs from the US in the first six months of this year.

"The CFS has contacted the Hungarian and American authorities over the issues and will closely monitor information issued by the WOAH 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.