H5N1 is present in Special Area No. 4 of Alberta
Alberta eggs and poultry have temporarily lost access to an Asian trading partner.
Hong Kong’s Centre for Food Safety (CFS) which under the Food and Environment Hygiene Department is responsible for ensuring food is safe, suspended the import of poultry meat and eggs from Alberta on May 29.
This move came after “a notification from the World Organisation for Animal Health about an outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in Special Area No. 4 of the Province of Alberta in Canada…,” a CFS statement says, adding that Hong Kong didn’t receive any Alberta poultry or eggs within the first three months of 2026.
Special Area No. 4 in Alberta includes the village of Consort and smaller hamlets like Compeer, Altario, and Loyalist.
Alberta currently has three active H5N1 situations.
Two were detected on May 11.
One in a commercial operation in Special Area No. 4, and another in a commercial poultry operation in Strathcona County.
The other was detected in a commercial poultry setting on May 16 in Starland County, Canadian government reporting says.
These are the first instances of H5N1 in Alberta since November 2025.
Hong Kong isn’t a major buyer of Alberta poultry and eggs.
In 2024, Alberta’s ag sector exported about $572,000 worth of poultry to Hong Kong according to the United Nations COMTRADE database on international trade.
Hong Kong is, however, a large customer for other Alberta ag products.
In 2016, for example, Alberta exported 174.3 million of ag goods, and accounted for nearly 30 per cent of all Canadian ag exports to Hong Kong that year.