He told FMT that he was in fact putting more restrictions than the previous administration on what the public could bring into Sabah.
“Ever since I took over the ministry, we have been very strict about this issue. Even cooked food brought in from overseas is all confiscated and destroyed,” he said.
However, he said, his ministry had found that foreign workers, especially from Indonesia, who work in poultry farms had been smuggling fighting cocks into the state.
“As I have said before, this could be one of the reasons for the spread of bird flu. The other could be the migrating birds.”
He was responding to rumours circulating on social media that his ministry was more lax than the former administration which had prohibited items including roasted chickens or ducks from Hong Kong and the peninsula.
Some government officials claimed that Wong, as the new minister, had allowed such items into Sabah through airports, causing the spread of aviation flu.
Sabah has been critically affected by the bird flu, which has impacted both the local food industry and exports from the state.
However, the strain of bird flu has been categorised as H5N1, which is difficult to transmit from person to person. The mortality rate for H5N1 is about 60%.
Wong acknowledged that he had received calls from friends, including fellow ministers, asking for permission to bring fruits and food into Sabah.
However, he said he had refused all requests for items brought in without permits.
“The previous government would allow all the big names, the big guns, to just come in. But now, no more of that,” he said.
On the progress of efforts to contain the spread of the flu, Wong said more than 30,000 birds had been culled so far in the Tuaran district where the flu was first detected. He said similar action would be taken in the areas under surveillance.