In response to the discovery of Fipronil-tainted eggs on sale in several European countries, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has announced that it has added the partially-banned pesticide to its surveillance programme on UK farms.

Over the past month, there have been growing concerns over fipronil (a commonly used active ingredient in flea and tic treatments, which has been band from use on crops or food producing animals), after the substance was detected in eggs from the Netherlands on sale in supermarkets across Central and Western Europe. Fipronil has since been found in eggs from Belgium and Germany.

German authorities have linked the contamination in Belgium and the German state of Lower Saxony to a cleaning product used by a Dutch company, though the picture in the Netherlands, where upwards of 10 million eggs are thought to have been contaminated and 150 farms are implicated, is somewhat less clear. There, farm groups have said a drug to protect against blood lice had contained fipronil unbeknownst to farmers; large agricultural co-op LTO has said it intends to pursue the manufacturers for damages, as one in five Dutch egg farmers have been implicated in the scandal.

Last week, Ducth authorities released all the codes of eggs known to be contaminated with fipronil, noting that one code in particular represented “An acute danger to public health.”     

Meanwhile, Belgian authorities have admitted that they became aware of the contamination in June, but didn’t raise the alarm, as they did not want to jeopardise an ongoing fraud investigation; Belgian authorities defended their decision over the weekend, saying they first needed to assess the extent of the issue.

On Monday, the UK FSA announced that it has “Identified that a very small number of eggs have been distributed to the UK from the farms affected.”

In a statement, FSA said, “The number of eggs involved is very small and the risk to public health is very low, but we are urgently investigating the distribution of these eggs in the UK. We are working closely with the businesses that have received eggs from affected farms. Investigations to date indicate that any affected products are no longer on the shelves.

“The government has already taken action to prevent any risk to UK consumers by adding Fipronil to its robust surveillance programme in UK farms. We have no evidence that eggs laid in the UK are contaminated or that Fipronil has been used inappropriately in the UK. 85% of the eggs we consume in the UK are laid here.”

According to the Agency’s assessment, the number of eggs involved in the scare is very small and the risk to consumers is low, with no need for consumers to change their diets.

In France, however, where eggs were withdrawn from sale in shops last week, authorities have followed the lead of their German counterparts and begun investigating whether contaminated eggs have made it into processed foods. Preliminary results of the investigations in France reveal that tainted eggs have been discovered at two food processors’ plants.