Press Releases

SFH on mucormycosis cases

Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, at a stand-up media session after officiating at the opening ceremony of an optometry centre today (February 14):

Reporter: What will you say about the outbreak of this particular kind of fungal disease? Will the Hospital Authority extend the two-week surveillance if there are more cases coming up?

Secretary for Food and Health: The Hospital Authority is tracing the past record of all the patients that are receiving chemotherapy for blood diseases which have rendered them very low immunity to any infection. We need to spend some time on the archives before we know the extent it has affected our patients. But the important part is to prevent these immuno-compromised patients to be exposed to the external environment which might be contaminated with this type of fungus as normal individuals will not be affected by these organisms.

Reporter: Some doctors said it was difficult to totally ban patients from consuming food outside hospital. Do you have any appeal to the public?

Secretary for Food and Health: I think for patients staying in the hospital, it should not be too difficult to prevent people from bringing in food from outside. But regarding those immuno-compromised patients who are discharged at home, it is important to educate their family members to ensure that even though they are preparing and cooking their own food, there are certain important steps they have to do in order to ensure that their food are prepared under very high temperature or boiled for certain minutes, and they should not add any unknown source or type of ingredients into their food.

(Please also refer to the Chinese session of the transcript)




Ends/Saturday, February 14, 2009
Issued at HKT 18:54

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