ENG-2007 — Page 231

Food Safety, Environmental Hygiene, Agriculture and Fisheries 183

and colouring matters stipulated in the existing Public Health and Municipal Services Ordinance to make them consistent with the latest international practice and development.

The Government also plans to strengthen existing measures for safeguarding public health and consumer interests by introducing a food safety bill to give it better tools for ensuring food safety.

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 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. During the rest days, the operators are required to thoroughly cleanse and disinfect the stalls.

Furthermore, FPS and market stall operators selling live poultry are required to adopt practices such as the wearing of protective clothing at work, reporting dead poultry to FEHD staff once they are found, no overstocking of live poultry and reducing the risk of direct contact between humans and live poultry by requiring cages facing customers to have acrylic panels. It is also the responsibility of the operators not to allow customers to touch live poultry.

The FEHD conducts culling drills annually to test and assess the department's preparedness to carry out large-scale depopulation of live poultry should the need arise.

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 FPS licences or stall tenancies in FEHD public markets for an ex gratia payment. A total of 333 live poultry retailers surrendered their licences or terminated their stall tenancies under the scheme which ended in August 2006. In 2007, there were 471 live poultry retailers in operation, including 261 in public markets and 210 operating as licensed fresh provision shops.

During the year, the AFCD suspended temporarily the importation of live birds from a number of countries, including Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, North Korea, Indonesia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Japan, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Cote d'Ivoire, Ribatejo Norte of Portugal and Canada following reports of avian flu outbreaks in those places. The restrictions will be lifted when conditions recommended by the World Organisation for Animal Health are met in each of those places. Imports of live birds from the Mainland are subject to their being vaccinated or to their having proper health certificates.