HONG KONG - Hong Kong's food safety authority decided on Thursday to suspend the import of poultry products from Hyogo prefecture in Japan due to the bird flu outbreaks there.

The Center for Food Safety (CFS) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government's Food and Environmental Hygiene Department said that it suspended the importation of poultry meat and products, including poultry eggs, from Hyogo "with immediate effect" to protect public health.

The CFS said it gave the order after receiving notifications from the World Organization for Animal Health about an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5 avian influenza in Hyogo.

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A CFS spokesman said that, according to the Census and Statistics Department of the HKSAR government, Hong Kong imported about 50 tons of chilled poultry meat, about 4,300 tons of frozen poultry meat and about 200 million poultry eggs from Japan in the first nine months of this year.