Government bans poultry product imports from 2 German states

Influenza outbreak haunts Germany's northeast.

The Centre for Food Safety today banned all poultry-product imports from the German states of Brandenburg and Berlin.

The World Organisation for Animal Health notified the centre of an avian influenza outbreak in Germany's northeast. The centre has banned poultry-product imports from another German state, Schleswig-Holstein, since December 22, due to a bird flu outbreak there.

Hong Kong imported about 10,000 tonnes of frozen and chilled poultry meat and about 2.8 million poultry eggs from Germany last year.

The centre has contacted German authorities and will monitor information the organisation issues on German bird flu outbreaks.