Hong Kong's Centre for Food Safety (CFS), part of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department, said on October 5 that it had instructed traders to suspend imports of poultry meat and products, including poultry eggs, from several areas with immediate effect to protect public health.

The CFS cited notifications from the World Organisation for Animal Health about outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in Big Stone and Kandiyohi counties in Minnesota, Ravalli County in Montana and Barron County in Wisconsin. It also cited a UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs notification of a highly pathogenic H5N5 outbreak on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland.

Citing Census and Statistics Department figures, a CFS spokesman said Hong Kong imported about 24 190 tonnes of chilled and frozen poultry meat and about 20.2 million poultry eggs from the US in the first six months of this year, along with about 340 tonnes of chilled and frozen poultry meat from the UK. The CFS said it had contacted the American and British authorities and would monitor information from the WOAH and relevant authorities.