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The Vietnam News

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Vietnam says no nitrofuran in its shrimps

HANOI - Hanoi said on Thursday there were no traces of the antibiotic nitrofuran in its shrimp exports, after the European Union had said it planned to test shrimp from Vietnam, Myanmar and Thailand for illegal chemicals. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Phan Thuy Thanh said Vietnamese ministries had made strenuous efforts to make sure Vietnam's exports were not tainted with antibiotics.

"According to relevant professional agencies, there is no nitrofuran in Vietnamese shrimp imported to the EU," she said in response to a question about a British move to withdraw from sale some prawns and shrimps from Southeast Asia. The British Food Standards Agency said on March 15 that tests on warm water prawns from Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and India and Bangladesh had shown 16 out of 77 samples to contain unacceptable levels of nitrofuran. Thanh said Vietnam's fisheries ministry carried out regular and irregular inspections of aquaproducts.

"Before being dispatched, all aquatic product shipments are checked for residues of antibiotics and this is clearly written on the package," she said. Thanh said the nitrofuran scare had not caused a decrease in Vietnamese aquatic exports. She said the fisheries ministry had been checking for residues of toxic chemicals in aquaculture since 1999. A prime ministerial decree last month had strengthened an existing fisheries ministry ban on 10 antibiotics banned by the EU to include all those banned by the United States.

The European Commission said on Tuesday the EU's veterinary panel had accepted its recommendation that shrimp imports from the three Southeast Asian countries should undergo 100 percent testing. Nitrofurans are veterinary drugs, the use of which in food producing animals is no longer allowed in the EU because of a possible risk of cancer in humans who eat the contaminated food over long periods.

The EU in January banned imports of shrimps and some other products from China after finding traces of chloramphenicol, which can cause anemia in humans.

Reuters - March 21, 2002.