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The Guangdong, Macau and Hong Kong health authorities today (June 29) agreed to continue strengthening their co-operation and communication mechanism in the fight against infectious diseases, including the setting up of an expert team on prevention and treatment of human avian influenza from the three places.
The agreement was reached at the sixth tripartite meeting of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Expert Group on the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases in Dongguan yesterday and today (June 28 and 29).
During the meeting, public health and medical experts of the three places reviewed the works by the three parties in monitoring, prevention and communication of infectious diseases situation since the fifth meeting held in Macau last year.
They also held in-depth discussions on a number of public health issues which included preparedness for influenza pandemic, co-operation in response to outbreaks of public health incidents, recent situation of infectious diseases, operation of the notification mechanism, surveillance and control of pneumonia of unidentified cause and scientific researches, public health information system development, and future directions of infectious diseases prevention and treatment.
Experts of the three places presented their studies on the seasonal influenza situation and discussed the recent human avian influenza cases in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, covering areas of prevention and treatment programmes, clinical research on anti-viral drugs against influenza and enhanced surveillance and control measures over pneumonia of unidentified cause.
Members further studied in detail contingency plans for public health emergency and major infectious diseases outbreaks. They signed an agreement of co-operation on contingency measures during public health emergency in the three places and finalised the membership list of an expert team on prevention and treatment of human avian influenza from the three places comprising experts in the field of clinical, epidemiology and laboratory tests, establishing a co-operation mechanism among the three places in the prevention and control of emergency public health incidents.
After thorough discussion, consensus on the following subjects were also reached:
(1) Strengthen the response system to deal with emergency public health incidents and major infectious diseases by implementing the agreement of co-operation on emergency public health incidents in the three places.
(2) Step up communication and co-operation in the preparedness for influenza pandemic to reduce as far as practicable the health, social and economic impacts in case of an outbreak of influenza pandemic.
(3) Improve operation of the notification mechanism and set up an information platform on trend of infectious diseases.
(4) To continue mutual visits and training of health care professionals to cover areas of surveillance and outbreak investigations, contingency management, clinical epidemiology, laboratory tests and infection control management, etc.
(5) Co-operation in scientific researches, including AIDS, influenza and human avian influenza and dengue fever, etc.
Members agreed that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Department of Health would organise the seventh tripartite meeting scheduled to be held in July next year.
Participating in the meeting were the Director-General of Health Department of Guangdong Province, Prof. Yao Zhi Bin; Associated Director of the Department of Health of Guangdong Province, Mr Huang Fei; Director of the Health Bureau of Macao SAR Government, Dr Koi Kuok-leng; Hong Kong's Director of Health, Dr Lam Ping-yan; and more than 60 experts on infectious diseases from the three places.
Ends/Thursday, June 29, 2006
Issued at HKT 17:04
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