XN000022-1994-12-28 — Page 8

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Food surveillance figures for third quarter

The Department of Health has carried out 11,380 examinations for chemical, bacteriological, and radioactivity tests under its regular food surveillance programme during the third quarter this year.

The programme is conducted by the department's Hygiene Division to monitor that food supplied to the community is wholesome, unadulterated, uncontaminated, properly labelled and of nutritious quality.

Among 7,616 examinations for chemical analysis, 7,557 were satisfactory while 59 or 0.77 per cent were unsatisfactory.

The unsatisfactory cases were mainly due to food containing non- permitted or excessive food additives such as colouring matters and preservatives; seafood containing higher level of heavy metals; and vegetables tainted with pesticides.

Any food product not conformed to the local food legislation will be required to be withdrawn from the market. They are either returned to the country of origin or surrendered for destruction. To this effect, warning letters have been issued to the importers and local traders for their immediate action to recall their food products.

Bacteriological examinations also showed that out of the 3,612 samples taken, 3,435 were satisfactory while 177 samples or 4.9 per cent were unsatisfactory.

The unsatisfactory cases covered ice cream, milk, shellfish, fish and meat products containing bacterial count and coliform count higher than the microbiological standards.

Advice on food hygiene were conveyed to the manufacturers and retailers. They were also warned that continual sale of bacteriological substandard foods would result in prosecution.

On the monitoring of radioactivity in food, all the 152 samples taken were satisfactory.