Press Releases
Transcript of SHWF on avian influenza
Following is a transcript (English portion) of a media session by the Secretary
for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr York Chow, after his meeting with members of
the Board of Scientific Advisers of the Centre for Health Protection of the
Department of Health today (November 16):
Dr Chow: Today is the meeting with the Board of Scientific Advisers of the
Centre for Health Protection. I met with all the experts and listened to their
views regarding the risks of a pandemic in the region. Essentially, knowing that
there were chicken infections and some sporadic human infections in our
vicinity, we know that the risk of having avian flu infecting human cannot be
avoided. But the possibility of it becoming a pandemic for the world is still
considered of a low risk. We are monitoring the situation very closely and we
also need to ensure ourselves that we are well prepared in case it affects Hong
Kong. There are a number of considerations that we need to strengthen.
One of them is that our chickens are well vaccinated and they are considered
safe at this moment. With any genetic changes of the H5N1 virus, we might have
to reconsider whether the segregation of chicken and human policy that we have
proposed should be enhanced and also putting into a faster programme.
And secondly, we also know that although our hospitals and our staff are well
prepared for any infectious disease, we want to ensure that not only hospitals
but also those working outside the hospitals, and those in private practice, are
well aware of this possibility and the policy and the procedure to deal with any
emerging diseases. So, the Centre for Health Protection together with the
Hospital Authority will be liaising with the private sector and also organizing
seminars to ensure that all the health care workers in Hong Kong are well aware
of how to handle emerging diseases.
The third problem is regarding some of the requests that we received from
different sectors �V the industry, the commercial sectors, particularly some of
the global companies and some of the foreign residents in Hong Kong. We feel
that this is also important that we should have sufficient information given to
them. The Centre for Health Protection will organise a series of communication
forums for all these companies so that they know the risk regarding pandemic and
how they should prepare for it in case it affects the world, particularly this
part of the world. So with this, I would like to invite some of the members of
the group to say a few words regarding our preparedness plan because we spent
over an hour and a half looking at some of the policies we have. We are ready to
receive any new information from them or suggestions from them. And a lot of the
policies that we have introduced are the results of their expertise.
Reporter: Can you tell us what is the situation on the Mainland and what sort of
information you��ve got?
Dr Chow: Currently we have very good information from the Mainland both from the
Ministry of Agriculture on the outbreak of avian flu in poultry as well as from
any human infection from the Ministry of Health. So, both of them have real time
information for us. We have point-to-point contact. A lot of our staffs are
communicating with them on a daily basis. So, regarding some of the outbreaks,
we know it almost as early as the Ministry knows about it. (How about the human
cases?) Which one are you talking about? Hunan? As far as I know, the boy has
antibody in his body but they have to send the specimens back to the central
laboratory in Beijing for verification. As far as the investigation is
concerned, one of our experts is actually in China right now working with the
World Health Organisation (WHO) team and looking at the technical side of the
investigation. So in every aspect, I think we know quite well what the
information is like, what the situation is like in Mainland China. But we know
that Mainland China is a big country and a lot of outbreaks are in the rural
areas, so it takes time before the reports and all the investigations are being
done.
Reporter: �K central slaughtering�K?
Dr Chow: Because we feel there is an added risk if we continue with live chicken
in the markets so we might have to speed up the programme of central
slaughtering or regional slaughtering. We haven��t had any firm decision yet. I
think we have to look into this as the priority.
Reporter: �K (inaudible).
Dr Chow: We have now a senior consultant, a virologist, actually working in
China together with WHO. They will be working together with the laboratory in
Beijing, the Central Reference Laboratory. So I think the WHO actually has
sufficient expertise in the Mainland in order to address this problem.
(Please also refer to the
Chinese portion of the transcript)
Ends/Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Issued at HKT 23:00
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