Press Releases
SFH on human swine flu vaccine
Following is the transcript of remarks (English portion) made by the
Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, at a stand-up media session at
the Legislative Council Building today (November 9):
Reporter: Are you under pressure to include school children into the target
group (for human swine flu vaccination)? Are you going back to ask the
expert group to look at this or are you going to wait until you get enough
swine flu vaccines to include them ?
Secretary for Food and Health: As I have told the legislators earlier, we
are considering any type of groups that may be at risk apart from the
existing five groups that have already been identified. It is important to
note that we are not just providing vaccines so that people just get it but
rather, I think we have to balance the risk of having the vaccine and also
the risk of not having the vaccine. The scientific experts have identified
the five groups at the moment and they would be the priorities for the
coming vaccination programme. We will be following up on the situation in
case during the winter peak, there are actually other groups, including
students, that may be affected. We will be monitoring the situation and then
decide.
Reporter: But if you include the school children, would you have to buy more
vaccines?
Secretary for Food and Health: We will see what the consumption of the
vaccines is like. I think just like the experience in other places, if the
epidemic is going to be severe, then more people will rush to get the
vaccine. But if the peak is not going to be that severe, I can foresee that
there will be some people choosing not to be vaccinated. So this is a very
difficult situation to fully predict. But we have to make preparation for
all scenarios and in case there is a need to vaccinate students as well, we
will be also getting ready for it.
Reporter: Are you concerned that the take up rate of the swine flu
vaccination is not as you expected among the target groups. What are you
going to do?
Secretary for Food and Health: I think in view of the relatively mild
situation of the human swine flu in Hong Kong for the last few months, some
of the Hong Kong people may be a bit complacent about what will happen in
winter. But I have to stress that as we cannot predict fully what the
situation will be like, I would advise at least the at-risk groups in the
community should receive vaccination because judging from the possibility
and also the risk, the chance of them getting a more serious illness or
maybe even facing the risk of death is there. So, it is important to appeal
to them that they should have themselves vaccinated.
(Please also refer to the
Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Monday, November 9, 2009
Issued at HKT 14:27
NNNN