Press Releases
SFH on avian influenza
Following is the transcript of remarks (English portion) made by the
Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, at a media session after the
meeting of the Steering Committee on Avian Influenza this morning (June 2):
Reporter: (On the condition of the patient.)
Secretary for Food and Health: The condition of the patient is not serious.
For our contingency plan, whenever there is a local case of avian influenza
in Hong Kong, we need to raise our alert to the serious level. That is the
reason why I have just announced all those measures that we had to take,
including raising the alert in the public hospitals; checking the imports of
live chickens; inspecting our farms and birds and so on. We think it is an
important measure to take for particularly Hong Kong, because we had
experiences of outbreaks of avian influenza in Hong Kong. For this
particular case, so far the chance of it being spread to other humans is
relatively low. But we still need to go through the whole process of
analysing the origin and channel of the infection and have to study the
virology of the virus.
Reporter: (On temperature and health check at the border.)
Secretary for Food and Health: The temperature check is only able to detect
people with high temperature. With anybody who is suppressing their body
temperature with medicine, it is always difficult to detect. What is more
important for the whole exercise of checking body temperature is to alert
our tourists and also our Hong Kong returnees to be aware of their health.
In case there are any symptoms or signs, they should seek medical treatment.
Everyday, we are able to detect more than 10 to 20 people with high
temperature passing through our border. We do not quarantine them or take
them to hospitals. We will check their contact history to see whether they
have been exposed to poultry or birds and so on; and what type of infection
they are likely to have. Many of them follow our advice and go to seek
medical treatment.
Reporter: (On banning live poultry imported from the Mainland.)
Secretary for Food and Health: We have done a lot in the last few years in
controlling avian influenza in our poultry, including those imported from
the Mainland as well as from our local farms. We are also handling our
chickens at the retail level with the "no retention overnight" policy. These
are effective policies as far as controlling avian influenza in Hong Kong is
concerned. But as far as the whole environment is concerned, as you know
that this year we have 20 dead wild birds tested positive for carrying the
H5N1 virus. It means that if the virus is always in existence in our natural
environment, although they might not be affecting our poultry, might not be
affecting our humans, but they are there. In all aspects, we have to be very
cautious all the time to ensure that all the measures we took are being
followed by the respective stakeholders and Government regulators.
Reporter: (On whether there will be an import poultry ban.)
Secretary for Food and Health: I do not see any reason for changing our
supply of live poultry at the moment. But we will of course always be
vigilant about the situation. If we find anything that would increase the
risk of H5N1 infection on humans, we will of course take extra measures.
Reporter: Do Hong Kong people need to be worried about the incident?
Secretary for Food and Health: At the moment, it is an isolated case. We
feel that there is no need for panic among Hong Kong citizens. We have
measures to tackle all types of infectious diseases, including controlling
avian influenza through various means such as our control at poultry farms
and retail level and so on. We also have very good diagnostic tools within
the health care system. All the hospitals are equipped to test influenza
virus by a fast test and are able to alert within a few hours. All in all,
the only message I like to advise the public is to always maintain a good
level of personal and environmental hygiene. When you visit other places
outside Hong Kong, be careful of those wet markets and places where there
might have poultry. It is always more risky when you get into a large
concentration of animals if you do not know their health status.
Reporter: (On transmission mode of the virus.)
Secretary for Food and Health: For all experiences, the most common course
of transmission is from infected poultry to human. Infected poultry means
that the chicken is usually still alive. It is very rare that dead chicken
or chilled or frozen chicken would transmit the virus to humans.
(Please also refer to the
Chinese portion of the transcript)
Ends/Saturday, June 2, 2012
Issued at HKT 14:53
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