HONG KONG?- The Hong Kong food safety authority said on Monday that it has banned the import of poultry meat and products (including poultry eggs) from Japan's Hokkaido and Britain's Lincolnshire.

The Center for Food Safety (CFS) of Hong Kong's Food and Environmental Hygiene Department said in view of a notification from Japan about an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5 avian influenza in Hokkaido prefecture and a notification from Britain about an outbreak of H5N8 in Lincolnshire, it has banned the import of poultry meat and products from the two areas with immediate effect.

In addition, an import ban on poultry meat and products from Serbia has been imposed with immediate effect following notifications from the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) about outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5N8 avian influenza in Serbia to protect public health in Hong Kong.

A CFS spokesman said that in the first 10 months of this year, Hong Kong imported about 6,000 tonnes of frozen poultry meat and 40.6 million poultry eggs from Japan, and about 13,250 tonnes of chilled and frozen poultry meat and 600,000 poultry eggs from Britain.

The spokesman said since Hong Kong has not established any protocol with Serbia for imports of poultry meat and eggs, there is no import of such commodities from Serbia.

"The CFS has contacted the Japanese, UK and Serbian authorities over these issues and will closely monitor information issued by the OIE on avian influenza outbreaks in the countries concerned. Appropriate action will be taken in response to the development of the situation," the spokesman said.