Press Releases
SFH on human swine flu (with photo/video)
Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Secretary for Food and
Health, Dr York Chow, today (May 21) after meeting representatives of the
tourism sector on Hong Kong's preparedness for human swine influenza:
Secretary for Food and Health: Today I met with representatives of the
travel industry. We have discussed about how this human swine flu affects
their business and the industry for the last month. We have also made
projections of what we need to prepare for the future. In general, the
industry suffered a lot in the last month since worldwide reports of human
swine flu and discovery of the first case in Hong Kong three weeks ago. With
the recent knowledge of the virus and despite widespread infections in more
than 40 countries, most of the cases are still relatively mild and
treatable. So we think that travel activities should continue as normal. The
only advice I give to the public is if they have any chronic illnesses, any
disease or health condition that will affect their immunity, they should
consider carefully before they travel, otherwise, all travel and economic
activities in Hong Kong should be maintained. We encourage them to make
preparation for good personal hygiene while travelling. This is the advice
we give to the industry and the public.
Reporter: This morning the directly observed chemoprophylaxis (DOC) was
implemented. How effective do you think this DOC would stop the spread of
human swine flu among the community? How confident are you that people
placed under DOC would comply with instructions?
Secretary for Food and Health: We have given people the option of either
under DOC or stay in quarantine camp. So these are the two options given. If
they are confident, they can take the medicine Tamiflu on a regular basis
under supervision, the chance of them getting any infection is extremely
low. From the experience we had in the last few weeks, with both quarantine
as well as Tamiflu, we do not have a single case of any incident of
transmission at all. So I think, with this, we are very confident that the
DOC should work.
Reporter: Will you be tough on people who do not comply?
Secretary for Food and Health: They have been carefully briefed by the
health officials. We will have an order for them to report under medical
surveillance, so they need to comply. So if they do not comply, we will have
the authority to put them under quarantine.
Reporter: Would you consider putting down the emergency level?
Secretary for Food and Health: The existing information of the WHO relies on
the information from the few countries that have reports. The WHO will have
a more detailed report from a few centres, particularly clinical reports
next week. So by that time, we will be able to know the clinical picture,
the virulence, the hospitalisation rate, the complication rate, and also the
causes of death by then. So at this point of time, the general impression is
that this is very similar to a seasonal flu type of epidemic, but knowing
what happened to Mexico, and also the increase in incidents in the United
States, it is still a concern whether this is the case when they spread to
other places. On one hand, we are much better reassured that this is not as
severe as we first thought, but on the other hand, we also have a lot of
areas that we cannot predict at this point of time. And also the concern
from the experts is not so much on this first wave, but may be the second
wave that would come in winter. And the virus might have a higher activity,
and also higher infection rate, and usually in winter, we also have a higher
complication rate related to influenza. So we should not be too complacent
regarding this, but on the other hand, since we are going to face such a
long battle, we might as well try to make good of our livelihood. So we
should not be totally affected by this infection. We should try to maintain
as normal livelihood as possible, but keeping the precaution we wish to have
for infectious disease and looking after our environment and personal
hygiene.
(Please also refer to the
Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Thursday, May 21, 2009
Issued at HKT 16:50
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(Photo)