HONG KONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL 1 June 1988
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SECRETARY FOR HEALTH AND WELFARE: Sir, I understand that the law does provide for the vendor to be responsible in these circumstances. But as far as I am aware, during the last year at least, there have been no prosecutions for this particular purpose.
MR. SOHMEN: Sir, as I am not a biologist, my question may be a bit naive, but since there are toxic and non-toxic red tides is there any correlation in the incidence of their occurrence? In other words, do non-toxic red tides occur more frequently than toxic ones, or vice versa?
SECRETARY FOR HEALTH AND WELFARE: Sir, I am not a biologist either but I do understand that most of the red tides that we have had in recent years have been non-toxic, very fortunately. So this problem, in general, does not arise. But whenever there is a red tide, tests are taken of the water to ensure that it is not toxic and if it were, then appropriate action would be taken.
MR. YEUNG: What sort of measures are being taken by Government to prohibit the public from collecting shellfish from polluted waters such as Aberdeen, Victoria Harbour, Tsuen Wan and Kwai Chung?
SECRETARY FOR HEALTH AND WELFARE: Sir, I understand that the Public Health and Municipal Services Ordinance provides that it is an offence to take shellfish from these areas. I am sure that the marine police do keep an eye open for this sort of thing happening in those areas.
MR. CHEONG-LEEN: Sir, in the media campaign concerning polluted shellfish, to what extent can the public be assured that if such polluted shellfish should be properly cooked, it would be safe to consume? Could an explanation be given as to the form the compulsory artificial purification of local shellfish will take place? Will that be done in the harbour, or after collection? And how can it be done after collection when it is illegal to do so?
SECRETARY FOR HEALTH AND WELFARE: Sir, as far as making shellfish safe by cooking it, I am advised that the correct procedure would be to immerse the shellfish in boiling water for one minute or steaming for about one and a half minutes to raise the internal temperature to about 85 to 90 degrees celsius; and then to keep the shellfish at this temperature for another minute and this would then completely kill Hepatitis-A viruses, and the pathogenic bacteria which are less resistant would almost certainly have expired by that time.
The purification process being considered is to require shellfish to be stored in freshwater for a period before it is allowed to be sold or to be consumed. I understand that is the basis of what is known as the 'de-puration process'.
DR. CHIU: Sir, I do not think the Secretary for Health and Welfare has answered the second and third parts of my supplementary question which are: What are the results in general and how often are these tests conducted?