186 Food Safety, Environmental Hygiene, Agriculture and Fisheries
Furthermore, the Government set up on May 2, 2006 a Centre for Food Safety (CFS) within the FEHD to further improve its monitoring of food. The department's Food Surveillance and Control Division and the Risk Assessment and Communication Division was brought under the CFS following the appointment of a controller for the centre.
Under the food surveillance programme, 64 915 samples of foodstuff were taken at import, wholesale and retail points in 2006 for chemical, microbiological and radiological testing to ensure the products were safe for human consumption. In addition, 55 346 food labels were checked for compliance with legal requirements.
A total of 28 067 vehicles carrying vegetables, and 47 682 vehicles carrying live food animals including pigs, cattle, goats and poultry were inspected at the Food Control Office and Animal Inspection Station at Man Kam To during the year. A total of 10 732 599 live food animals were examined and 90 004 blood and 71 104 urine, faecal and tissue samples were taken for testing for disease and veterinary drug residues.
The Government has conducted a study of the overall costs and benefits of introducing a nutrition information labelling scheme in Hong Kong, and will propose it to the Legislative Council in 2007.
Enhanced Measures against Avian Influenza
Under an agreement between the Mainland and Hong Kong, all imported chickens from the Mainland must be vaccinated against H5 avian influenza (commonly known as bird flu). In addition, veterinarians from the FEHD will pay regular visits to the registered Mainland farms that export poultry and to exchange information with Mainland authorities to ensure that all Mainland farms that export poultry are up to standard.
To prevent virus accumulating in retail outlets, the FEHD requires fresh provision shops (FPS) and market stall operators selling live poultry to observe a 'two rest days per month' rule. Before commencement of the rest days, all live poultry at these outlets have to be slaughtered. Thereafter, the operators are required to thoroughly cleanse and disinfect the stalls.
Apart from the above, FPS and market stall operators selling live poultry are required to observe other conditions such as wearing protective clothing at work, reporting dead poultry to FEHD staff once detected, no overstocking of live poultry and reducing the risk of direct contact between humans and live poultry by requiring cages facing customers to be affixed with acrylic panels. It is also the responsibility of the operators not to allow customers to touch live poultry.
The FEHD conducted an exercise in December 2006 to test and assess the department's readiness should there be a need to carry out large-scale culling of live poultry in Hong Kong.
To reduce the number of live poultry retail outlets, the Government in July 2004 introduced a voluntary scheme to encourage live poultry retailers to surrender their
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