Press Releases
Transcript of media session by SHWF
Following is the transcript (English portion) of a media session by the
Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr York Chow, after attending the
"Building A Healthy Tomorrow" public consultation session in Leighton Hill
Community Hall, Causeway Bay, today (August 18):
Reporter: (on consultation feedback)
Dr Chow: We have these two consultation sessions yesterday and today. Together
with the other meetings we have with the different groups in the last few weeks,
we have gathered a fair bit of opinions regarding health care reform. We have
also received roughly 70 letters and emails. We have been analysing them slowly
until the end of the consultation period at the end of October. In the meantime,
we are researching on the health care financing status. I will be going to
Australia in the middle of September to seek information regarding their health
care system and their health care information system. Hopefully, we could draw
some reference and comparison and also be able to get some opinions on some of
the problems relating to the implementation (of health care reform) in the past
few years.
Reporter: Dr Chow, can you also give us an update about the food situation in
Shenzhen? Are you satisfied with the time taken to .... with the Shenzhen
authority?
Dr Chow: We have received the written confirmation today from the Shenzhen
authority that the recall for pork a few days ago was related to a suspected
incidence of Streptococcus suis contamination of some of the pork. We have also
enquired that there is no other specific reason for the recall. They have also
confirmed that there is no personnel that was infected by Streptococcus suis
infection in Shenzhen. We have got the confirmation that the batch of pork that
was affected did not come from the same source as the pork exported to Hong
Kong. So they come from different places.
Reporter: (on eel issue)
Dr Chow: At the moment, we are still advising the public not to consume any eel
products and live eels from China. The main reason is they have recalled the eel
products from the Guangdong Province in the last two days. We are also testing
the eel products and live eels in our markets. So hopefully, within a couple of
days, we will be able to have results to inform the public whether they are safe
for consumption.
(Please also refer to the
Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Thursday, August 18, 2005
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