Press Releases
SFH on medical insurance and human swine flu
Following is the transcript of remarks (English portion) by the Secretary
for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, at a media session after attending a
radio programme today (March 4):
Reporter: How to ensure insurance company's profits would not be too great?
Is there a possibility that the Government will sign an agreement with these
insurance companies?
Secretary for Food and Health: We have not decided how to implement this
limitation on profit. For the standard insurance that we are proposing, we
hope that it will not incur too high administrative fee or profit for the
insurance company. But it does not mean they cannot make profit out of other
products. In fact, a lot of experiences in overseas countries also allow
insurance companies to sell other products to their clients, and this is one
of the big reasons why the insurance companies are surviving and also they
can actually have a bigger market. As you know the insurance companies do
not just make money out of the premium alone, because they collect the
premium and a lot of their profits come from investment of that premium
money.
Reporter: For the swine flu situation in Hong Kong, it is already March and
we still have not seen another peak. Does that mean we are safe now?
Secretary for Food and Health: It is quite true that we do not see a peak
this winter so far and the winter is going to be gone very soon. Whether
there will be a peak in later months is difficult to predict. But it is the
opinion of our experts that the summer peak would still be something we need
to be concerned about. Usually the summer peak will arrive about June and
July and that is the usual pattern in Hong Kong.
Reporter: Why did not we see winter peak this season?
Secretary for Food and Health: We do not have a very solid reason that we
can explain why the winter peak did not come about. But perhaps one of the
more reasonable causes is the long summer peak we have in 2009. Remember
that we had the first case in the middle of June and the peak actually
started to rise very quickly in July and August. And it did not really come
down until early October. According to some of our studies, quite a number
of young people already had anti-bodies in their bodies. Perhaps this is the
reason why they do not have a wide outspread in our schools in recent
months.
(Please also refer to the
Chinese portion of the transcript)
Ends/Thursday, March 4, 2010
Issued at HKT 12:33
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