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Overall food hygiene standard acceptable
The Department of Health today (Thursday) announced at a press conference the results of its food surveillance programme for 1996.
The food surveillance programme is conducted by the Department's Hygiene Division to monitor that food supplied to the community is wholesome, unadulterated and properly labelled. A total of 47,104 samples were collected for chemical, bacteriological and radioactivity tests in 1996.
Commenting on the surveillance results, Assistant Director of Health (Hygiene) Dr Leung Pak-yin said: "The overall trend in 1996 is similar to that of 1995 and is within acceptable levels."
Of the 29,504 samples for chemical analyses, only 543 (1.8%) yielded unsatisfactory results. The majority of these unsatisfactory cases were vegetable samples containing excessive pesticide residues.
Dr Leung said: "This is due to the much larger number of samples collected at the new Man Kam To Food Control Office which commenced operation in early 1996 and has enhanced import control at the border and provided better safeguard for public health."
As for the 16,635 samples for bacteriological examinations, 1,260(7.6%) gave unsatisfactory results. Compared with other food items, samples of sashimi (39.2%) and sushi (49.1%) collected at wholesale and retail levels yielded the highest unsatisfactory rates in 1996. It was however noted that their hygienic condition was improving over the year: the unsatisfactory rates for sashimi and sushi had dropped from 43.2% and 51.9% respectively in the first half of 1996 to 37.3% and 47.8% respectively in the latter half of the year.
Dr Leung attributed the slight improvement to the efforts of the two Municipal Councils, the two Municipal Services Departments and the Department of Health over the hygiene of sashimi and sushi and the widely publicised message of the importance of proper handling and processing of this kind of food.
"The situation hopefully would further improve after putting premises preparing, serving and selling sushi and sashimi under licensing control by the Urban Services Department and the Regional Services Department in early 1997," he added.