A Hong Kong health official made a rare public complaint yesterday about China taking five days to explain why a massive pork recall was ordered just across the border in Shenzhen.
The pork recall last weekend caused a big health scare in the territory, which imports much of its pork and other food from China.
Hong Kong officials first found out about the massive pork recall last Saturday through media reports, Eddy Chan (陳育德), deputy secretary of the Health, Welfare and Food Department, told lawmakers.
"At that time, we had not received any notification from Shenzhen about the reason behind the operation," Chan said.
He complained that a formal letter explaining why the pork was being recalled finally arrived from Shenzhen on Thursday -- five days after the recall began.
"They forwarded the reasons to us rather late," Chan said.
He said Shenzhen officials recalled the pork because they feared that some pigs might have been infected with the swine-borne illness streptococcus suis, which recently killed 39 people in Sichuan Province. But he said Shenzhen reported the pork tested negative for the bacteria.
Hong Kong Health Secretary York Chow (
Communication between Hong Kong and the mainland has long been a sore spot between the two sides. It became an issue of extreme concern for Hong Kong after the 2003 outbreak of SARS.
Yesterday, some lawmakers urged Hong Kong officials to be tougher on their mainland counterparts.
Legislator Vincent Fang (方剛) said, "Sometimes being nice is not going to be useful. If you just say maybe our measures are better than yours, they won't listen to you."
Fang suggested that Hong Kong station health experts on the mainland could quickly check out reported problems.
Meanwhile, the territory's residents were told not to buy eels from China after tests yesterday confirmed the presence of a suspected cancer-causing chemical in the imports.
Eleven of 14 eels from China tested this week were found to contain malachite green, Chow told legislators yesterday.
Malachite green is a chemical used to treat parasitic infections at fish farms. It has been been banned in the US and the EU.
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