Hong Kong has suspended imports of poultry meat and products, including eggs, from Lolland Municipality in Denmark and Jackson County in Minnesota, United States, following outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in those areas.
The Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department announced the measure on 27 October 2026. It instructed the trade to halt imports from the affected areas with immediate effect to protect public health in Hong Kong.
The decision followed notifications from the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) about the H5N1 outbreaks.
A CFS spokesman said the centre had contacted the Danish and American authorities and would continue to closely monitor information from WOAH and the relevant national authorities, taking further action as the situation develops.
According to Hong Kong’s Census and Statistics Department, in the first six months of 2026 the city imported about 390 tonnes of frozen poultry meat from Denmark, along with about 24,190 tonnes of chilled and frozen poultry meat and approximately 20.2 million poultry eggs from the United States.
These suspensions are geographically targeted and apply only to products originating from the named municipalities/counties, not to poultry from the rest of Denmark or the US.
Hong Kong routinely imposes such precautionary restrictions when highly pathogenic avian influenza is reported in exporting regions, a practice that has been applied to multiple areas in Europe, North America and Asia in recent years.
A separate CFS announcement the previous day (26 October) had already suspended poultry meat and products from Slagelse Municipality in Denmark after a WOAH notification of an H5N1 outbreak there.
Hong Kong’s approach prioritises rapid, area-specific import controls based on international disease reporting. The CFS has not indicated any risk from products already in the local market from the newly restricted zones, and there is no suggestion of a domestic outbreak linked to these measures.
Monitoring continues, and restrictions can be lifted once the outbreaks are resolved and authorities confirm the areas are free of the disease.
