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Following is the transcript of the media session by the Chief Executive, Mr Tung Chee Hwa, at the Central Government Offices, Main Wing, today (May 23) about the lifting of the WHO travel advisory:
Chief Executive: We welcome the decision of the WHO on the travel advisory. It is a very good decision for Hong Kong.
What we have achieved so far has not been easy. It is the result of tremendous effort by all the citizens of Hong Kong. For this, I am truly grateful. Of course, we should also be grateful to the Central People's Government for their unwavering support during the whole difficult period.
But we need to continue our efforts because our aim must be that every day that goes by there should not be any new cases of SARS. And eventually we will successfully remove Hong Kong from the list of infected areas. At the same time we have to understand that this is a new virus. There are still some areas which we are not very clear on, so we need to be really on guard at all times. And the most important thing is really to get on with all the measures that we have already put in place to ensure that the virus does not spread. At the same time, we shall be working very quickly to announce the names of the committee we are forming to learn from what we have done in the past and combine the experience we have learned together with a CDC-type organisation we are going to build, and to see how we can work together to build a better public health structure that will enable us to do a better job in fighting future epidemics.
At the same time, the Chief Secretary for Administration, as you know, is leading a Team Clean in improving Hong Kong's environmental hygiene. And we are working very hard at it. The purpose is to see improvement as quickly as we can and we will be announcing appropriate measures very soon. The Financial Secretary is having meetings today, at this moment, to revive the Hong Kong economy and he will be speaking to you all later on. What we have achieved has not come easily, it is an effort of all the people of Hong Kong. And we should treasure what we have achieved and redouble our efforts to make sure that as early as possible our name is removed from the infected area list. Thank you.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion)
End/Friday, May 23, 2003
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