Press Releases

Transcript of Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food on avian influenza

Following is a transcript of the remarks made by the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr Yeoh Eng-kiong, at a stand-up media session at the Central Government Offices today (January 26):

Dr Yeoh: I just want to emphasise that obviously with all the bird flu outbreaks in seven neighbouring areas, I've just met this morning with the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department, Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department, Department of Health and Hospital Authority to review our strategies on the prevention of avian flu and our surveillance systems. As the public knows, we have three-pronged strategies.

The first is we have increased our biosecurity in our farms. The second is that we have instituted a vaccination programme. So all the chickens in our farms are vaccinated for H5N1 and all the imported chickens that are coming from the Mainland are also vaccinated. We ensure that the vaccination is effective because we test all the chickens that come out to the markets for antibodies to make sure that the take-up rate is high. In addition, we also monitor for any unusual deaths, both in the markets and in the farms, to make sure that there are no breakthrough infections from the vaccination programme. The third is, of course, we have our strategies of rest days in the markets and the regular cleansing in our markets and wholesale markets. So these three measures have been effective so far in preventing any outbreak in Hong Kong.

But obviously we are not complacent. I've asked colleagues to intensify the surveillance programmes and in addition, I have also asked the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department colleagues to step up our surveillance on the wild birds. This is still the current proximate that the wild birds - migratory birds are carrying the virus. Although we have done a lot of specimens in the last year, we have not detected H5N1 in the wild birds in Hong Kong. We had one instance just before the holidays where a falcon was found to be positive with H5N1, so I have asked colleagues to step up the surveillance programmes. We are also watching out for any possible mutation of the virus to make sure that our vaccines continue to be effective. So we are monitoring all these in Hong Kong.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion)

Ends/Monday, January 26, 2004
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