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The Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr Yeoh Eng-kiong, met with the Director-General of the Health Department of Guangdong Province, Professor Yao Zhibin, this morning (September 8) to discuss ways to further enhance the strategies to prevent and control infectious diseases in the region.
Both sides discussed the communication mechanism of infectious diseases between Guangdong Province and Hong Kong, the exchange and sharing of programmes for public health officers in the two places, as well as the enhancement of scientific and academic collaboration in both places.
Building on the foundation laid by the tripartite meetings of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Expert Group on Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Disease on the regular exchange of information on statutory notifiable infectious diseases, Dr Yeoh and Professor Yao further discussed details of the communication mechanism on reporting such diseases.
Both health authorities agreed to maintain the frequency of reporting for notifying SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) cases on a weekly basis. For other infectious diseases, the frequency of reporting would be once a month. On the 15th of each month, the Guangdong health authority would transmit its infectious disease information to its Hong Kong counterpart via the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Guangdong.
Upon receiving the infectious disease information, the Department of Health in Hong Kong would conduct preliminary analysis of the information for sharing with its Guangdong counterpart.
For special public heath incidents, the frequency could be adjusted upon agreement by the two places. Both sides also agreed to review the communication mechanism regularly with a view to improving the system.
To enhance professional communication and experience sharing of infectious disease control and prevention among public health officers in the two places, it was agreed that officers be invited to take part in short-term attachment programmes.
The short-term exchange programmes suggested by Hong Kong covered the following subjects: HIV voluntary counselling and testing, field epidemiology, microbiological laboratory service, and methadone treatment programme for HIV. In addition, Guangdong and Hong Kong would jointly hold an annual conference on infectious diseases to share professional experience.
On enhancing scientific and academic collaboration between the two places, Hong Kong initiated a collaborative research and surveillance projects among HIV experts in the centres for disease control and prevention of the major cities in the Pearl River Delta Region to enhance the understanding of HIV situation in the region.
In view of the increasing population flow in the region and the possible recurrence of SARS, both sides reached a consensus to hold a mock exercise in the near future in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau (subject to agreement by the Macau health authority) to test the effectiveness of the notification mechanism, as well as the ability of the public health officers in the three places in preventing and controlling infectious diseases from spreading across the boundary.
"The meeting provided a very precious opportunity for both sides to confirm the agreement reached at the tripartite meetings of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Expert Group on Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases.
"It also laid a solid foundation for strengthening further collaboration efforts between the two places in the prevention of infectious diseases.
"With the increasingly frequent travel between Guangdong Province and the HKSAR by the people of the two places, we must join hands in the prevention and control of infectious diseases because diseases know no physical boundary," Dr Yeoh said.
Dr Yeoh looked forward to more frequent exchanges with his mainland counterpart with which he said was conducive to enhancing understanding of the overall strategies in the prevention and control of communicable diseases in the two places, thus to the overall health and well being of people in the two places.
This morning's meeting was attended on the Hong Kong side by Deputy Director of Health, Dr Leung Pak-yin; Consultant (Special Preventive Programme) of Department of Health, Dr Lee Shui-shan; and Medical and Health Officer (Community Medicine), Dr Tsui Lok-kin.
For the Guangdong side, also present were deputy director-generals, Mr Feng Liuxiang and Ms Wang Zhiqiong, and six officials from various departments in Guangdong.
Dr Yeoh and other members of the delegation visited the fever ward of Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital, and in the afternoon the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention of Guangdong Province to gain firsthand experience of the operation and work of the centre.
End/Monday, September 8, 2003
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