New food poisoning risk alerts to be issued

SHANGHAI: Daily bacterial food-poisoning risk alerts based on temperature and humidity will be issued to local residents via media and e-mail from next year.

The Shanghai food and drug administration and Shanghai meteorological bureau planned to jointly launch the system on a trial basis in April 2009.

"Bacterial growth is closely related to temperature and humidity, and the April to October period is the peak season for bacterial food poisoning, because the temperature ranges between 20 and 40 C, and humidity is usually high then," Shanghai food and drug administration deputy director Li Jie said on Wednesday.