Thousands of DNA tests on European beef products have revealed extensive food fraud across the European Union, with almost one in 20 meals marketed as beef likely to be tainted with horse, the European Commission said Tuesday. Releasing the results of more than 4,000 tests in recent weeks to detect the potential mislabelling of beef products, the EU executive said 193 products contained positive traces of horsemeat DNA, or 4.55 percent.

EU-wide tests of beef products have found up to five percent horsemeat, according to the European Commission in a statement that was later removed from its website. The DNA testing was conducted after a widespread scandal in Europe over horsemeat being found in beef products which undermined consumer confidence in the food industry. The European Commission briefly posted the up to five percent figure on its website but then removed the statement. More test results were expected later in the day, including country-by-country findings, officials said.

Thousands of DNA tests on beef products across the European Union found up to 5.0 percent of horsemeat in beef products, the European Commission said Tuesday. The EU on February 15 ordered 2,250 DNA tests on prepared meals said to contain beef in the wake of a horsemeat scandal that hugely undermined consumer confidence in the food industry. It also ordered tests in horse carcasses for the potentially harmful horse drug phenylbutazone, or bute, which is banned from the human food chain.

By Dominique Patton BEIJING (Reuters) - China's poultry sector has recorded losses of more than 10 billion yuan ($1.6 billion) since reports emerged of a new strain of bird flu two weeks ago, an official at the country's National Poultry Industry Association told Reuters on Tuesday. Authorities have slaughtered thousands of birds and closed live poultry markets in Shanghai and Beijing in an attempt to reduce the rate of human infection and allay growing fears about the H7N9 virus.