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SFH on human swine flu

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Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, at a stand-up media session at the Legislative Council Building today (June 19):

Reporter: (Vaccines funding approval)

Secretary for Food and Health: I think it is natural for legislators to question the Government regarding the information of the new vaccine because unlike other vaccines, there are still quite a number of uncertainties in this area. Although we have analysed the situation and also predicted certain possibilities in this field, we expect that quite a number of vaccine companies will be able to produce a suitable vaccine within the next few months. I think quite a number of them might be able to market it. But it is up to us, whether we can secure the number and also the type of vaccine that would satisfy our quality specifications. So, this is certainly the first step that we will take. At this moment, our priority is to ensure that we can secure the supply of the suitable vaccine. And the second phase, of course we will look at how we administer the vaccines to the four at-risk groups.

Reporter: Are you suggesting that the Government is not adopting a city-wide class suspension for secondary schools?

Secretary for Food and Health: The reason is this group of youngsters is relatively healthy. So far, those patients belonged to this group have mild symptoms and recovered pretty well. We try to ensure that our policy is to ensure first of all, we protect the more at-risk groups so the young children, from primary schools and kindergartens, are those we want to protect. But at the same time, we would like to have least disturbance to the normal activities of the schools and allow them to continue the essential activities such as examinations and so on. But at the same time, we would look at various other activities that would actually be preferred by the youngsters in summer. So, we are not just looking at school activities but also the summer activities that would affect the schools.

(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)


Ends/Friday, June 19, 2009
Issued at HKT 20:03

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12 Apr 2019