Press Releases

Government studies various options to control infection

The Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr Yeoh Eng-kiong said today (June 5) that the Government was looking at both short-term and long-term options to enhance hospital facilities to tackle infectious diseases.

At a stand-up session with the media this afternoon, Dr Yeoh said the Government would look into three options of improving hospital facilities to manage infectious diseases, including severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).

The options are: to build a new infectious disease hospital, increase and enhance infectious disease facilities in existing hospitals, and building temporary isolation facilities to triage patients, he said.

As some of the options would take a longer time to implement, such as constructing new buildings, the Government was looking into ways that could enhance our ability in the short term to tackle any resurgence of SARS in the next couple of months, such as improving ventilation systems in public hospitals and enhancing isolation facilities in existing hospitals.

With our present knowledge of the virus and our control measures, with our experience in the early detection of the potential outbreak of disease, we should be able to prevent large outbreaks like that of the Amoy Gardens. However, we would not exclude the possibility of mutation or changes in the behaviour of the virus or other factors that could lead to a large outbreak. We therefore should not let down our guard in the preventive and control measures against the disease, he said.

As for the handling of SARS patients by the Baptist Hospital, Dr Yeoh said the Director of Health would follow-up on the case in the context of the director being the registration authority of private hospitals.

Besides, the Experts Committee on SARS would look into the handling of SARS cases by public and private hospitals with a view to enhance Hong Kong's overall capability to tackle infectious diseases in the future, he said.

End/Thursday, June 5, 2003
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