Hong Kong on alert for melamine
Hong Kong is escalating its testing of Chinese food products, following the discovery of melamine contamination in eggs.
Excessive levels of melamine were found in one brand of mainland eggs on Saturday which suggests that the contamination may have come from animal feeds. Hong Kong’s Centre for Food Safety will begin testing Chinese pork, farmed fish and offal products, Health secretary York Chow said.
“Since some animal feed used on the mainland might have been polluted by melamine, our tests will target more on meat imported from the mainland,” Chow said. “As we have found melamine in eggs, we shall also test chicken meat and we shall also look at offal, for example, chicken kidneys and pig kidneys,” he added.
From the tests conducted so far, feed used by Hong Kong-based farmers appears to be free of contamination and local farmers have said they do not use imported feed.
The tests follow last months scandal that milk and other food products made in China were tainted with the industrial chemical melamine, and resulted in the deaths of four babies.
Chinese food products have been banned around the world, with tests continuing in order to pinpoint problems in China’s food safety regimen.
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