The Australian Government has announced new measures to act on the recent Hepatitis A outbreak that has been linked to imported Chinese frozen berries.

In a joint release, Minister for Agriculture Barnaby Joyce and Assistant Minister for Health Fiona Nash said 100% screening would apply to frozen berries from factories in China linked to the incident, which have been held pending further testing.

Screening will include tests for Hepatitis A indicators.

The Australian Department of Agriculture has sought information on supply chains  from all importers of frozen berries from China, and has officials on the ground working with Chinese authorities to tackle the issue.

The release added the Chinese Government had carried out initial inspections of the packhouse implicated in the outbreak, and had taken swabs for microbiological testing.

It is expected that early results from comprehensive testing of the berry product in question will be out this week.

Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) has provided interim advice upgrading the suspect frozen berries to "medium risk" following a request by the Department of Agriculture last week to review the risk status.

The agency will also continue its broader and rigorous scientific assessment of the risk status of frozen berries from around the globe, which is expected to take a few weeks.

Australia's Chief Medical Officer has advised that an estimated 1% infection rate for people eating these berries is a very conservative upper limit which could be revised downwards as experts continue to examine all the data. In addition, previous outbreaks of hepatitis A have shown that around 30% of adults infected may not show symptoms at all and this is higher in children.

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