Press Releases
Secretary for Food and Health on Exercise Equator
Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Secretary for Food and
Health, Dr York Chow, at a stand-up media session after observing Exercise
Equator organised by the Centre for Health Protection today (June 6):
Reporter: (about the exercise)
Secretary for Food and Health: Today we organised a drill "Exercise Equator" to
look at the possible scenario of a food poisoning outbreak in the Olympic
village at Royal Park Hotel. It involved all together eight departments and
units mobilising more than 100 people. The scenario is an outbreak involving
about 26 athletes poisoned by the food in the Olympic Village. We will be
looking at various co-ordination regarding treatment of the athletes at the
hotel, triage of those athletes who needed to be hospitalised, the ambulance
service which transferred the athletes to the hospital and the handling of those
patients in the hospital. At the same time, our health experts and inspectors
will look at the cause of the outbreak and try to trace the cause of food
poisoning from the source of food, from the kitchen to various personnel in the
hotel. This is a very comprehensive exercise involving real personnel. We will
be reviewing the experience and try to share that with the Beijing organising
committee.
Reporter: (about the exercise)
Secretary for Food and Health: So far, it has been very smooth and well co-ordinated.
We also looked at some minor modifications and alternative procedures that might
be helpful in the real situation.
Reporter: (about contingency plan in case there is terrorist attack)
Secretary for Food and Health: We are working with other bureaus, including the
Security Bureau, on various contingency plans of different scenarios. The
possibility of terrorism is of course something that any Olympic organising
committee will be concerned about.
Reporter: (about manpower)
Secretary for Food and Health: As I have mentioned earlier, we will be using
three hospitals for the preparation of the equestrian event. The Prince of Wales
Hospital will look after the athletes, the North District Hospital which will
look after the event of the eventing, the only one-day event that will occur in
the Fanling golf course and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital which will be looking
after the Olympic family and Paralympic family members, those are the VIPs and
the guests of the Olympic and Paralympic committee.
Reporter: Are you quite happy with the outcome of the exercise?
Secretary for Food and Health: In general we have made very good preparation for
this drill. All the participants have done very well according to the
procedures. But like any type of exercise, there are always some areas for
improvement. There is no serious fault in the exercise so far. But we will try
to make it perfect and make sure that if we need to face such a scenario, we are
all prepared.
Reporter: (about areas for improvement)
Secretary for Food and Health: I have been talking about some of the routes of
transferring patients, some areas whether we can have better protection of
privacy. These are the things we are trying to look at.
(Please also refer to the
Chinese session of the transcript.)
Ends/Friday, June 6, 2008
Issued at HKT 19:14
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Exercise Equator tests response to Olympics public health incidents (with
photos)