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Following are the remarks made to the media by the Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food, Dr Yeoh Eng-kiong, after attending the hearing of the Legislative Council Select Committee to inquire into the handling of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak by the Government and the Hospital Authority today (April 20):
Dr Yeoh: I was giving evidence that, on the 14th of March (2003), we were describing a phenomenon because on the 14th of March, there was no new term for this new phenomenon that we were observing. And we were describing and trying to explain to the public what was actually happening. When you talk about atypical pneumonia, it is a generic description for a group of diseases, it is not a very specific term. Even now the people in the medical sector have difficulties in defining it. But atypical pneumonias are pneumonias which are not typical. And in Hong Kong, every month, we have 1,500 to 2,000 cases of pneumonias, of which a proportion usually a third or half, are described as atypical. So, this is the phenomenon that we see on a day-to-day basis. Atypical pneumonia is not an exact term. It is caused by many many organisms, some of which we already know of and within that there is this new phenomenon which was caused by what we know now the SARS-coronavirus. So on the 14th, I described the situation of pneumonia in Hong Kong. I described how many cases we saw and that the information provided to me by the Hospital Authority and the Department of Health showed no increase in those cases. So, I was describing the whole phenomenon of atypical pneumonia. But I did describe within atypical pneumonia, there was a subset of patients which seemed to be different from the others. And that was the outbreak that we saw in the Prince of Wales Hospital. I did describe the phenomenon of the cases within atypical pneumonia subset which we were seeing. So, you see, there was difficulty at that time of communicating when you didn't have a name for this new phenomenon and which was lumped to all atypical pneumonia.
On the 14th, there were cases, there was an outbreak in the Prince of Wales Hospital and that gradually spread to the hospital staff, the patients and the family members. When you look at the transcripts, all that were described. So, we were describing the phenomenon in very difficult circumstances when there was no terminology for atypical pneumonia.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion)
Ends/Tuesday, April 20, 2004
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