Controlling Agricultural Chemicals and
Veterinary Drug Residues in Food Animals

Feeding of drugs and chemicals

Feeding of drugs and chemicals to food animals can leave residues in the meat, offal and other parts of the animals. The Agricultural Chemicals and Veterinary Drugs (ACVD) Unit ensures that food from animals is free of residues of agricultural chemicals and veterinary drugs and safe for human consumption.

With the recurrences of poisoning arising from consumption of pig offal in recent years, there is a need to control the feeding of drugs and chemicals to food animals. The introduction of the Public Health (Animals and Birds) (Chemical Residues) Regulation made under the Public Health (Animals and Birds) Ordinance (Cap.139) on December 31, 2001 has brought the feeding of drugs and chemicals to food animals under control in order to safeguard public health.

The Agricultural Chemicals and Veterinary Drugs (ACVD) Unit

The ACVD Unit of The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) now enforces this regulation relating to imported food animals and food animals admitted into the three slaughterhouses in Hong Kong.

Sampling and Testing

Samples are collected from every consignment of food animals entering the slaughterhouses in Hong Kong and are tested for veterinary drug residues. Those lots of animal found to contain prohibited chemicals are withheld from the food chain and destroyed. The relevant information is referred to the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department (AFCD) or the concerned authority in Mainland for further actions at the farm level. There are now 44 drugs under monitoring and approximately 70,000 different samples are expected to be collected for laboratory examination each year, including urine, serum and other tissues from pigs, cattle, goats and chickens.