Hong Kong's Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department recently announced that imports of poultry meat and products (including poultry eggs) from the district of Osnabrück in the State of Niedersachsen in Germany have been suspended after an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N8.

A CFS spokesman said that according to the Census and Statistics Department, Hong Kong imported about 180 tonnes of frozen poultry meat and about 530,000 poultry eggs from Germany in the first three months of this year.

"The CFS has contacted the German authorities over the issue and will closely monitor information issued by the OIE and the relevant authorities on the avian influenza outbreaks. Appropriate action will be taken in response to the development of the situation," the spokesman said.