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attained an internationally recognized standard. We may well say that the Urban Council's effort in this respect has not been wasted and it should be recognized.
However, in the past six months, we have had several public health scares, namely the Listeria in the U.S. made Dreyer's ice-cream bars, vegetables being contaminated by toxic methamidophos, and the recent outbreak of H5N1 bird flu which caused panic among Hong Kong people and attracted worldwide attention. In the handling of these incidents, there is obviously a lack of co-ordination and evasion of responsibilities among Government departments. Some issues, which could easily be dealt with, were turned into complicated matters and got out of control. The crux of the problem lies in the lack of a central co-ordination department to deal with the issues at a high level. These incidents have reflected that the SAR Government tends to take stop-gap measures and tackle problems in a palliative manner. As the SAR Government is not well versed in crisis management, it is completely at a loss when confronted by crises of this nature.
I think that the public health scares we have had in the past six months were all connected with imported food. It appears that more and more incidents of this kind will crop up in future. Such incidents will not decrease. As far as imported food is concerned, the SAR Government has established a sampling and testing system for some of the vegetables and a quarantine system for cattle, goats and pigs, and I can recall that poultry is also included. This surveillance system, in my opinion, should also be extended to cover imported seafood and other imported food products. The United States is an advanced country which has stringent hygiene standards, and yet contamination of ice-cream bars by Listeria occurred in Dreyer's Texas plant. We should know that environmental pollution and many other related problems in any one country are not allowed to be overlooked nowadays. The SAR Government should put in place a comprehensive surveillance testing and follow-up system for imported food so as to safeguard public health.
From the H5N1 bird flu incident, we can also see that markets managed by the Urban Services Department and wholesale markets under the Agriculture and Fisheries Department are poorly managed and sanitated. I know that the Urban Services Department has close supervision on restaurants and food premises and carries out regular inspections. I do not understand why its own markets are so dirty? Why are they in such poor hygiene conditions? This would make people feel that "the officials are free to set fire to houses while the common people are forbidden even to light lamps.' Therefore, I am of the view that the Department should step up inspection of its markets and urge the market stall operators to pay more attention to environmental hygiene.
Apart from conducting random inspection of all imported food and stepping up quarantine inspection, I think there are two things the HKSAR Government can do:
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Page 522 of 654
Page 522 or
HONG KONG PROVISIONAL URBAN COUNCIL
517
attained an internationally recognized standard. We may well say that the Urban Council's effort in this respect has not been wasted and it should be recognized.
However, in the past six months, we have had several public health scares, namely the Listeria in the U.S. made Dreyer's ice-cream bars, vegetables being contaminated by toxic methamidophos, and the recent outbreak of H5NI bird flu which caused panic among Hong Kong people and attracted worldwide attention. In the handling of these incidents, there is obviously a lack of co- ordination and evasion of responsibilities among Government departments. Some issues, which could easily be dealt with, were turned into complicated matters and got out of control. The crux of the problem lies in the lack of a central co-ordination department to deal with the issues at a high level. These incidents have reflected that the SAR Government tends to take stop-gap measures and tackle problems in a palliative manner. As the SAR Government is not well versed in crisis management, it is completely at a loss when confronted by crises of this nature.
I think that the public health scares we have had in the past six months were all connected with imported food. It appears that more and more incidents of this kind will crop up in future. Such incidents will not decrease. As far as imported food is concerned, the SAR Government has established a sampling and testing system for some of the vegetables and a quarantine system for cattle, goats and pigs, and I can recall that poultry is also included. This surveillance systems, in my opinion, should also be extended to cover imported seafood and other imported food products. The United States is an advanced country which has stringent hygiene standards, and yet contamination of ice- cream bars by Listeria occurred in Dreyer's Texas plant. We should know that environmental pollution and many other related problems in any one country are not allowed to be overlooked nowadays. The SAR Government should put in place a comprehensive surveillance testing and follow-up system for imported food so as to safeguard public health.
From the H5N1 bird flu incident, we can also see that markets managed by the Urban Services Department and wholesale markets under the Agriculture and Fisheries Department are poorly managed and sanitated. I know that the Urban Services Department has close supervision on restaurants and food premises and carries out regular inspections. I do not understand why its own markets are so dirty? Why are they in such poor hygiene conditions? This would make people feel that "the officials are free to set fire to houses while the common people are forbidden even to light lamps.' Therefore, I am of the view that the Department should step up inspection of its markets and urge the market stall operators to pay more attention to environmental hygiene.
Apart from conducting random inspection of all imported food and stepping up quarantine inspection, I think there are two things the HKSAR Government can do:
Page 522 of 654
Page 522 of 654
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