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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 media stand-up session after attending a public function today (July 21):

Reporter: (about the guidelines for school closure)

Secretary for Food and Health: As the Controller of the Centre for Health Protection has stated, the criteria of 10% is a guideline. It is a soft guideline. We will have to apply it to individual cases, whether the 10% occurred in one day or progressively within two or three weeks has a very big difference. And also in a big school with over a thousand students, the 10% is actually over a hundred people. For a small school or kindergarten, they perhaps only have less than a hundred students, so 10% is just a few children. This is a very different comparison. So what we intend is that it is just a guideline. We will look at individual cases to decide on whether individual institutions need to be closed. As far as the management of the schools or kindergartens is concerned, I would urge that they should discuss with the Centre for Health Protection before they make any decision on closing the school.

Reporter: (about publicising human swine flu figures)

Secretary for Food and Health: The main reason is we still want to monitor the progress of this epidemic in Hong Kong. The WHO has decided not to publish those figures because many countries are unable to produce the figures on a regular basis, particularly on a daily basis. If you look at the figures from WHO, very few places like Hong Kong can actually give daily statistics to WHO. But as far as Hong Kong is concerned, we feel this is important that we monitor the system. But we have also decided that in due course when we are more concerned about the number of serious cases, the cases that are hospitalised and cases of fatality. The time will come that we will switch over to this, but at the moment, we feel that since the peak of the epidemic is still going on, it is important for us to have a daily figure.

Reporter: (about time spent on dealing with human swine flu and mental health services)

Secretary for Food and Health: Not really. We have a very balanced strategy regarding various health issues in Hong Kong. Of course, we need to address the crisis of human swine flu because it is a pandemic and it is also something that will affect all societies. As I have mentioned earlier, it has already affected 135 countries. And in some European countries, they are still feeling the impact right now. The United Kingdom has also emphasised that they expect this will last for much longer than they first expected. So these are things that we need to be concerned. As far as mental health is concerned, it is always a continuous issue that will affect our health services. We understand that there is an increasing demand for services. We have already used the resources in this aspect every year. Of course, we would like to focus on some of the areas that we feel that can be improved further in the coming year.

Reporter: (about when the pandemic will be over)

Secretary for Food and Health: This is a very difficult question. First of all, nobody knows when this pandemic will end. Most of the pandemic would slowly dwindle away, with the increase of the herd immunity of the whole community. For human swine flu, I think it will take really a long time. That is why we think it is important for us to look at various protective mechanisms that we can introduce to our community. Getting appropriate vaccine is one of them. To ensure that we adopt a very high vigilance against infectious disease is another. We also make sure that we have the treatment required for this virus at the moment. With the stockpiling of Tamiflu and Relenza, I think we are well equipped for that purpose. But for the prediction of this pandemic, I think we have to rely on the experts' opinions from various sources. So far, nobody can predict exactly when it will end.

Reporter: (about human swine flu vaccine)

Secretary for Food and Health: I think since we have made a lot of preparation, I am quite confident that we may be able to get vaccine. But it is important to note that it is not just a vaccine, we have to make sure that the vaccine is qualified for all the safety and quality standards that we have imposed. If most of the vaccine companies can produce vaccines that are of such high quality and safety, then I am sure that we will be able to get some.

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



Ends/Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Issued at HKT 16:07

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12 Apr 2019