Press Releases
SFH on contaminated drug
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
kick-off ceremony cum Carnival of Southern District Healthy and Safety City
today (March 8):
Reporter: Is the well-being of patients in public hospitals being neglected
given that private hospitals have already suspended the use of other drugs
produced by the Europharm but the Hospital Authority is still using......
Secretary for Food and Health: As far as the drugs are concerned, the
Hospital Authority has found a number of drugs also produced by this drug
company. It is important to know that the manufacturing process and the
ingredients in different drugs, whether they have any shared cause with this
particular Allopurinol. The Hospital Authority and the Department of Health
will be investigating this continuously. As soon as they have results, of
course, they will take appropriate actions.
Reporter: Why don't you suspend every single drug produced by the Europharm?
Secretary for Food and Health: Because at the moment, there is no evidence
that the other drugs are affected. Unless we find any common cause or common
ingredients of the other drugs, otherwise, it would be inappropriate for us
to stop using these drugs at the moment. As you know, the effect of this
drug only affects those patients who are immuno-compromised. This type of
fungus actually occurs in natural environment. So, it would not affect the
normal people but only affect those immuno-compromised such as patients
undergoing marrow transplant.
Reporter: Are you suggesting that it is inappropriate just for the private
hospitals to suspend the use of other drugs?
Secretary for Food and Health: The private hospitals have their own policy
of deciding what to do with their own drugs. It is important that we focus
on those groups of patients. At the moment, we have checked all the other
drugs that are used by the leukaemia and marrow transplant patients and we
have not discovered any other drugs that have been contaminated with any
bacteria or fungus.
Reporter: Is this the issue with money that the HA did not suspend all the
drugs manufactured by Europharm?
Secretary for Food and Health: No, I don't think that is a matter of money.
If we found that the drugs are contaminated, of course, we will suspend it
and try to find the contamination sources. But in this case, we have not
found any evidence of any other drugs being contaminated. The Department of
Health is investigating whether those drugs are manufacturing with a
different process or whether they have any shared components. Until we find
any evidence that they have contaminated other drugs, we will take
appropriate actions.
Reporter: Is it actually too slow?
Secretary for Food and Health: I think those patients at risk are those
immuno-compromised and we have already handled these cases with extra
precautions. So, they are not receiving any of those drugs.
(Please also refer to the
Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Sunday, March 8, 2009
Issued at HKT 18:44
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