Food Safety, Environmental Hygiene, Agriculture and Fisheries ❘ 199
since January 2004. While the frequency of taking water samples of fish tank from food premises selling live marine fish and shell fish for examination of Escherichia coli remains once every eight weeks, the action level is adjusted to 180 colony-forming units (cfu) per 100 millilitres. This helps provide an early alert signal to those premises with deteriorating quality of fish tank water or faulty disinfection system so that remedial measures can be carried out in a timely manner. Under the new surveillance programme, a total of five unsatisfactory fish water tank samples with the presence of Vibrio cholerae were detected followed by the execution of five closure orders against those food premises concerned.
In addition, four closure orders were executed against licensed food premises by the FEHD in the year due to outbreak of food poisoning cases.
In April, the FEHD launched an Incentive Scheme for Hygiene Improvement in Food Premises to provide loans to operators of licensed food businesses to carry out works for improving hygiene standards of their premises. The first round of the scheme ended in July. The second round commenced in October and would last until January 2005.
Food Safety and Labelling
The FEHD is tasked to ensure that the food available for human consumption is safe and properly labelled. It also aims to safeguard public health through the testing and control of live food animals.
Under the food surveillance programme, 61 181 samples were taken in 2004 for chemical, microbiological and radiological testing to ensure that food was fit for human consumption.
A total of 60 929 and 46 098 vehicles carrying food (vegetables and other food) and live food animals (pigs, cattle and poultry) respectively were inspected at the Food Control Office and Animal Inspection Station at Man Kam To. During the year, a total of 115 473 tests on a wide range of food samples were taken at import, wholesale and retail levels for surveillance and for compliance with the statutory standards. A total of 12 982 587 live food animals were inspected and 100 566 blood and 69 127 urine and tissue samples were taken from food animals for testing for diseases and veterinary drug residues.
The Government completed a public consultation exercise on the proposed nutrition labelling scheme in early 2004 and commenced a regulatory impact assessment (RIA) study on the overall costs and benefits of introducing a nutritional labelling scheme in Hong Kong. The Government will take full account of the views collected during the public consultation exercise and the results of the RIA study before finalising the way forward.
Enhanced Measures Against Avian Influenza
Following the agreement made between the Mainland and Hong Kong, all imported chickens from the Mainland were vaccinated against H5 avian influenza by