Press Releases
SFH on human swine flu
Following is the transcript (English portion) of remarks made by the
Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, at a stand-up media session
after attending a radio programme today (June 24):
Reporter: Is swine flu entrenched as seasonal flu? What sorts of actions
would the Government take? Would you drop all the mitigation measures?
Secretary for Food and Health: I think mitigation is still very important,
particularly when we are facing a new influenza virus. As you can see from
various experiences in North American countries, this virus is going to last
for some time. Although it is replacing slowly the so-called seasonal flu
H1N1 Brisbane strain and is already doing that in Hong Kong, but I think the
fact is most people do not have the antibody for this virus. So, we can see
that the transmission and also the spread of the influenza would be
continuing for some time. Our aim for mitigation is to try to ensure that
there is no large massive outbreak within a very short time because that
would cause a lot of burden on the healthcare facilities and also cause
panic in the society at the same time. So, this is something we try to
avoid. All the measures we are taking right now is to try to slow down this
epidemic and try to reduce the number of cases although we cannot prevent
them. So, this is important. The second principle is to ensure that those
people who are at risk are being protected and that is why we have a lot of
guidelines for schools, for young children, for people with chronic
illnesses and also for the elderly. This is something that I think is very
important because once we see people coming down with flu and complications
and require intensive care or maybe people who die from it, I am sure the
sentiment would be very different from what it is now. We cannot really be
complacent about this influenza although we allow people to have as much
normal activities as possible. I think we still need to care for those
people who are at risk.
Reporter: (Playgroups)
Secretary for Food and Health: We have actually set up all the guidelines
for such activities on the website of the Centre for Health Protection.
There are guidelines for organisers and for participants. For the organisers,
we feel that depends on what type of environment they have; we hope that
first of all, the group activity should not be big group and should not
result in overcrowding. Secondly, you make sure that those children who are
sick would stay home and do not come for those activities. This is very
important. While they are there, they are well looked after. They need to
regularly wash their hands and make sure they have good hygienic practices
and so on. We believe that such activities are essential for children but it
is important that we have enough precautions to ensure that would not become
a centre of outbreak.
Reporter: When are we going to move to full mitigation? Are you going to
base it on the number of infections or the severity of cases?
Secretary for Food and Health: In fact, if you look at the transmission
model, we are already in the middle of the mitigation phase right now. As
you know that, I think as of today, 99 countries in the world have reported
cases. In other words, the border controls are no longer really functioning
that well for many countries because they all have endemic cases, that are
indigenous cases. So, I think the same would go for Hong Kong very soon
although we are not actually dropping the border control but we feel that
our battlefront is actually at our clinics and also our hospitals. More
importantly, it is actually with our citizens and our families, they need to
take precautions themselves to ensure those people at risk are not exposed
to this virus as much as they can. So, if you have a family member that has
a chronic illness, I would suggest that you try every means to protect them.
Reporter: (inaudible)
Secretary for Food and Health: Hong Kong would not drop our reporting system
just like that. I think we take pride in being very transparent and being a
very responsible community here. So if we have so many cases, we have to
report it. It is important for the community to know about the trend. It is
also important for them to know if somebody is seriously ill or even die
from it. We are not going to drop the reporting system for the time being.
(Please also refer to the
Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Issued at HKT 15:03
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