Press Releases

Transcript of remarks by Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food

Following is the transcript of remarks by the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr Yeoh Eng-kiong, at Central Government Offices on avian influenza today (December 20):

Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food: As we said in fact, the avian flu is already endemic and we expect to see sporadic cases, so this is nothing very surprising because in winter, this is the season where the risk is the greatest and we tend to have a large number of chickens coming in. Because of the winter solstice and the Chinese New Year, families tend to purchase chickens so this is the season where there is a very high risk of infection. There are two reasons why the public is seeing apparently more sporadic cases. One is of course this is the season where we have more chickens coming to Hong Kong, there have a large number and there is a greater risk of infections spreading because we just have a largest population. When chickens are crowded, then you have a larger risk. The second reason because knowing that there is increased risk, our colleagues from the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department are doing more intensive surveillance. They are now visiting stalls every two days, every two hours, to inspect whether things have happened, whether there are sick chickens. So obviously to that process we are bringing up more instances where we find chickens dying because we also have very intensive surveillance both at the border and in our farms and so far everything is under control. I would like to ask the public not to worry because we do have a situation that is under control. We cannot guarantee that it would not get worse but certainly we are doing our best to make sure that we keep everything under control. The department has to intensify both the cleansing and in terms of inspecting, to make sure that if there are any instances of isolated cases of birds died that they are contained very quickly.

I would also like to thank some of the market stall holders for cooperating because we need the cooperation to make sure the stalls are clean and that the stalls are not overcrowded because if they are overcrowded, and imagine if someone's got flu and you've got a hundred of people around you that is much easier to spread. So there is no reason to overstock chickens because we have chickens coming in every day from the border. In fact we would like to encourage our stallholders not to overstock chickens because that would certainly increase the risk. They certain have been very cooperative generally in cooperating with our colleagues in cleansing the stalls because that is very important in risk management. So the message is that we will obviously have a risk of chicken flu in Hong Kong as long as we have live chickens but this is a matter of risk management and we are now much more aware and have much better understanding of where the risks are and that things are under control.

Reporter: ......do we need to stop the importation of live chickens?

Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food: No, because we have said that it is obviously a risk that the public needs to accept because of our taste for fresh chickens. We now have chilled chicken which obviously is an alternative. So, I guess it is a matter of risks and benefits because if there are the risks to bear, I feel that if they are unacceptable to human health, we will certainly stop live chickens but we are not at that stage. Certainly we are looking at risks and benefits at the moment. We can accept the risks but we need to have a good system to manage the risks and we do have a very good system of surveillance and risk management in Hong Kong.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion)

Friday, December 20, 2002