Press Releases

Fish inspection being put under existing food surveillance programme

The inspection of imported fish would now be put under the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department's (FEHD) existing food surveillance programme, a spokesman for the Health, Welfare and Food Bureau announced today (September 7).

The spokesman said that after putting imported fish under the food surveillance programme, FEHD staff would continue to take samples for microbiological and chemical testing. "The microbiological testing covers the analysis of both bacteria and viruses, while chemical testing includes detection of natural toxins, food additives and contaminants. The department will regularly promulgate surveillance results for public information."

The spokesman added thatpeople had a better understanding of the health risks posed by malachite green in the past few weeks.

In addition, recent test results revealed that the majority of imported fish samples did not contain malachite green while the remaining number of samples only contained slight amount of malachite green. As such, the Government considered that the related testing should be followed up by the existing surveillance programme, the spokesman said.

The accumulated number of freshwater fish samples taken for testing of malachite green between August 20 and September 7 was 211. In most of the positive samples less than 10 �gg/kg level of malachite green was detected.




Ends/Wednesday, September 7, 2005
Issued at HKT 18:13

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