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Following is the transcript of remarks made by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr York Chow, at a stand-up media session at the Legislative Council Building today (June 18):
Reporter: Was it a threat posed to Hong Kong by the outbreak in Guangzhou?
Secretary for Food and Health: At the moment we feel that the threat is not high, because it involves only one duck farm which is actually quite remote from Hong Kong. Within the radius of 13 kilometres, there is only one poultry farm that is destined for export to Hong Kong. With the current ban on chickens from the Mainland, this would not affect the current arrangement. But the date will have to be extended to 21 days after yesterday, so this would affect the exports of that farm to Hong Kong. What I am saying is with the environmental discovery of H5N1 in Hong Kong and the poultry outbreaks in the Mainland, the threat is always there. We must be very careful before we allow any live chicken in our markets.
Reporter: You are focusing on the virus getting out of that farm and the distance around it. But somehow the virus gets into that farm?
Secretary for Food and Health: First of all, waterfowl like ducks and geese are harbouring the virus, that is, most of them have the virus in their body. It is well established by scientific fact, but why it actually has an outbreak, whether it is immunity of the ducks that has changed or whether the virus has changed, we need to explore and we do not have that information yet.
Reporter: Is someone checking ducks to see whether the virus has mutated?
Secretary for Food and Health: As far as I know, the national laboratory will be doing all the tests to investigate whether there is any change of the virus.
Reporter: Do you have information on that yet?
Secretary for Food and Health: I do not think they have actually done the test yet in completion because it takes some time for the genetic sequencing of those tests.
Reporter: Are you taking any special steps in response to this outbreak?
Secretary for Food and Health: As you see we are being very careful about our existing policy of market management before we allow any live poultry to be sold again in those markets. We will be talking with the trade particularly regarding the daily cleansing of the market and do not leave any live chickens overnight.
Reporter: No new steps?
Secretary for Food and Health: I think this is one of the important steps we need to come to agreement before we can move on. Also quite a number of retail representatives told us they might prefer to have an arrangement of terminating the trade but with good compensation and this is of course another area that we will explore.
Reporter: How concerned should people be about this outbreak?
Secretary for Food and Health: With the existing surveillance system of Hong Kong and our vigilance, the threat of human being infected by H5N1 is not very high. But we need to be very careful all the time. Particularly the last time we detected H5N1 in Hong Kong in our environment was last Wednesday, today is only one week (after). Avian flu would have an incubation period of up to seven days, we've just reached the first cycle. If we do not find any more human cases by the end of next Wednesday, we will be quite confident that there is no human spread this time. But we are more worried about the subsequent arrangement, whether the existing chickens in the farms and those coming into the market will pose additional threat. If that is the case, I think we have to have more stringent measures for the markets so that we can safeguard both the poultry workers as well as the public.
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)
Ends/Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Issued at HKT 16:20
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