Press Releases
SFH on swine flu
Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Secretary for Food and
Health, Dr York Chow and the Controller of the Centre for Health Protection,
Dr Thomas Tsang, at a stand-up media session at the lobby of Murray
Building, Central today (April 26):
Reporter: (Travel advice and contingency plan)
Secretary for Food and Health: The Centre for Health Protection has already
issued advice to the public regarding travelling to north America and also
Mexico. I think our advice to people is: do not travel to Mexico unless it
is absolutely necessary. If you do, you make sure you are well-prepared with
all the protection that is required. Regarding the United States, that
depends where you are going and what the progress of the spread that is
actually in those states or countries. Our advice is unless you need to
travel, better not travel to those areas that have outbreaks.
Reporter: (inaudible)
Controller, Centre for Health Protection: In response to the swine flu
outbreaks overseas, we have immediately stepped up our port health
protection measures, specifically, as you know, we have the temperature
screening machines at all our checkpoints. If any passenger fails the
temperature test, alright, have a fever, he will be interrupted and we will
obtain the history whether in the past seven days, he has been to any of
these places affected by swine flu. If that history is positive, we will
take that patient to the hospital and let him stay there and have a test and
until the test result is negative, we won't allow him to get out of the
hospital. Secondly, in-bound flights to Hong Kong, especially from places
affected by the swine flu outbreaks, we have increased the broadcasting of
messages targetting at these passengers, making sure that they know if they
have any symptoms, contact us and we need to take them to hospital and
provide the test. So, we believe that these measures will enable us to
reduce the chance of importation of human swine flu cases. But I hope you
understand that scientifically, that can't be a volatile situation, we
cannot guarantee one hundred per cent. So, we are taking a vigilant
precautionary approach to reduce as much as possible the chance of human
case of importation. If there is indeed a case occurring in Hong Kong, we
will be taking some actions specifically. First of all, the case himself
will be taken to the hospital for isolation and treatment. As you know, we
still have medicine, oseltamivir and zanamirvir. These are medicine that we
believe are effective. Secondly, we would trace all the contacts of this
patient as it is an avian flu or SARS patient. We will know their health
condition, put them on medical surveillance and quarantine as necessary. And
also, we will be reviewing all our control measures regarding contact
tracing, hospital infection control. We are already doing some preliminary
preparatory work in anticipation of such scenarios happening in Hong Kong.
Reporter: (New York city)
Controller, Centre for Health Protection: Now, the criteria we use is if the
patient is coming from the affected place by swine influenza. By affected
place, I mean places that have already reported or confirmed laboratory
swine flu. We are aware certainly of the report from New York concerning a
couple of students who have fever and presumably influenza but they are
still trying to find out whether it is related to swine flu or not.
Reporter: (People coming from New York)
Controller, Centre for Health Protection: I do expect that there will be a
lot of these reports coming from different sources, whether official or
unofficial. And we will certainly place special attention to these reports.
Reporter: (Travel advice)
Secretary for Food and Health: Of course, we will look at the advice to be
given by the World Health Organisation regarding their analysis and also the
confirmation of the behaviour of this new virus. If this virus is going to
be a very effective human-to-human transmission, then of course, I am sure
the WHO would issue actually more strict travelling guidelines for every
country and in fact all the international community, so including Hong Kong.
So, we will have to look at what is going to come out of the analysis. And I
believe, at least in the short term, we will see more cases of this swine
flu in other parts of north America and occasionally also in the other parts
of the world. Our purpose is to ensure that if any imported case comes to
Hong Kong, we can identify them early, treat them early, contain it so that
it would not actually cause the spread in Hong Kong. This is the primary
purpose of the policy that we have decided today.
Reporter: (Surge capacity)
Secretary for Food and Health: Most of the beds are actually not used for
infectious diseases right now. I am talking about the 1,400 beds. Most of
the beds being used are still in the Princess Margaret Hospital which has a
designated infectious disease centre. And I think they don't need anything
more than 80 to 100 every day. Actually, we have a big surge capacity in
that area.
Reporter: (inaudible)
Secretary for Food and Health: We have increased the potential use of
intensive care and ventilation therapy in Hong Kong after SARS. So, I think
all the infectious diseases that I have mentioned that they all have
potential capacity to ventilate patients. And on top of that, we can always
mobilise other specialties like intensive care unit, anaesthesiology and so
on. At this moment, I don't think we are worried about this surge capacity
yet. But of course, we are monitoring the situation very closely. According
to the reports of the CDC, United States, most of the cases that have the
human swine flu this time, are relatively mild. Of course, we do not have
sufficient data from Mexico regarding their serious cases and also their
mortality. We will ask the WHO to provide more information in that area.
(Please also refer to the
Chinese session of the transcript.)
Ends/Sunday, April 26, 2009
Issued at HKT 20:11
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