MUSCAT, 10 September — Oman has destroyed contaminated frozen chicken imported from Saudi Arabia, according to a top official at Oman’s Ministry of Regional Municipality, Water Resources and Environment.
Said ibn Darwish Al-Alawi, the director general of health control at the ministry, confirmed: "We have destroyed some of the products imported from Saudi Arabia."
The UAE authorities first alerted their Omani counterparts over the possibility of the Saudi product being contaminated with salmonella pathogen.
"We conducted our own tests and found that the products concerned were indeed contaminated with salmonella," Al-Alawi told Gulf News.
Salmonella is a type of bacteria that causes typhoid and many other infections of intestinal tract. Scientists have recorded more than 2,300 strains of salmonella pathogen.
The Omani official said they have destroyed packets of frozen chicken weighing 900 gm with the manufacturing date of June 20, 2002, and 750 gm, dated April 4, 2002.
He added that they also ran tests on the other packets but they were not contaminated.
The health inspectors had collected samples of the poultry products directly from the market in different areas of Oman. "They have been destroyed nationwide, thus it is difficult to say how many such packets have been destroyed," he said.
Khalil ibn Hassan Al-Baloushi, deputy director general of health control and a member of the GCC Food Safety Committee, said the decision to destroy the packets was in line with the other GCC member states.
He added that besides Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have also taken similar steps after conducting tests on the products.
Saudi Arabia slapped a ban on chicken produced by the company early last month following reports that its products were contaminated.
Twenty samples of chicken produced by the firm for tests at the Saudi Commerce Ministry’s central laboratory and at the laboratories of King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh.
The ministry banned the company’s products and withdrew the quality mark after it was confirmed that its products contained salmonella bacteria.
Informed sources said the ministry had sent veterinarians and other experts to monitor the company’s poultry farm in Qassim and find out the reasons for the contamination.
