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Following is a question by the Hon Chan Yuen-han and a written reply by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, in the Legislative Council today (January 30):
Question:
According to the Hong Kong Childhood Immunisation Programme (CIP) implemented by the Centre for Health Protection of the Department of Health, newborn babies to children in Primary Six should be immunised with different types of vaccines against nine communicable diseases. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) of the criteria the authorities have based on for deciding to include in CIP the vaccines against those nine communicable diseases and those for selecting new vaccines to be included in CIP;
(b) of the frequency of the reviews on CIP conducted by the authorities, and whether they have conducted any further reviews on CIP since CIP's immunisation recommendations were updated in February 2007;
(c) if the authorities know whether, apart from pneumococcal vaccine, vaccines against other diseases had been successfully developed in other places in the past five years; if so, whether the authorities will include such new vaccines in CIP; if they will not, of the reasons for that; and
(d) whether the authorities have assessed the effectiveness of CIP; if so, of the details (including how to assess the importance of CIP's immunisation recommendations on children's health)?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) In considering whether to include a new vaccine in the Childhood Immunisation Programme (CIP), the Department of Health (DH) needs to take into account a number of scientific factors including epidemiology, disease burden, as well as the safety, efficacy, side effects, cost-effectiveness and supply of the vaccine, etc. The acceptance of the vaccine among the public, the availability of other preventive measures, and the administrative arrangements for vaccination are also important factors for consideration.
(b) The Scientific Committee on Vaccine Preventable Diseases under the Centre for Health Protection of the DH will closely monitor the latest position of the World Health Organisation (WHO) on immunisation and vaccination, the scientific development and application of new vaccines as well as their formulations and cost-effectiveness, the changes in the global and local epidemiology of vaccine preventable diseases and the experiences of other health authorities. Based on these, the Scientific Committee will make recommendations to the DH on the CIP.
Currently, the DH's CIP is aimed at protecting children from nine childhood infectious diseases, namely, tuberculosis, poliomyelitis, hepatitis B, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, measles, mumps and rubella. The CIP was last updated in February 2007. At that time, having regard to the recommendations of the Scientific Committee on Vaccine Preventable Diseases, the DH decided to introduce a combined diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis and inactivated poliovirus vaccine (DTaP-IPV) to replace the oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) and whole-cell pertussis (wP) vaccine which were in use then. The Scientific Committee on Vaccine Preventable Diseases keeps the local CIP under constant review, taking into account the latest global developments.
(c) In the past five years, apart from the pneumococcal vaccine, the rotavirus vaccine is another vaccine which has been developed and registered outside Hong Kong for use in the prevention of childhood infectious diseases. The Scientific Committee on Vaccine Preventable Diseases has set up a working group on the prevention of rotavirus infection, which will discuss the issues relating to the use of rotavirus vaccine and make recommendations to the Government.
(d) In assessing the effectiveness of the CIP, the DH will take into account the epidemiology of the nine diseases included in the CIP, including the number of cases and trends, and whether there has been any major outbreak of these diseases. There is a noticeable drop in the number of reported cases of all the nine diseases after their inclusion in the CIP. Besides, there has not been any major outbreak of hepatitis B, pertussis, tetanus, measles, mumps or rubella in recent years in Hong Kong while there has been no new reported case of diphtheria and poliomyelitis since 1982 and 1995 respectively. The Western Pacific Region of the WHO, to which Hong Kong belongs, was also certified as a poliomyelitis-free region in 2000. The number of cases of severe tuberculosis (e.g. miliary tuberculosis) has also decreased significantly. The DH has all along kept the immunisation coverage rate at over 95% and will continue to keep the relevant diseases under surveillance.
Ends/Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Issued at HKT 11:20
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