Hong Kong food safety centre warns consumers to avoid eating romaine lettuce from United States and Canada because of E coli outbreak

Hong Kong food safety authorities have warned the public to avoid consuming romaine lettuce from the United States and Canada because of possible E coli infection.

The call came after the city’s Centre for Food Safety received outbreak reports from the two countries of E coli infection which might be linked to the consumption of romaine, also known as cos lettuce.

The centre also held all romaine lettuce imported from the two countries starting from Thursday for testing, a spokesman said.

The produce will only be released to the market upon satisfactory test results.

It has enhanced surveillance of romaine from the two countries at retail level.

Local retailers had voluntarily removed the produce from their shelves, the spokesman added.