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Today (November 14), a Department of Health (DH) spokesman confirms that contact tracing on the some 380 clients of Chinese medical practitioner (CMP) Sin Lai-sang who have been prescribed a steroid-containing topical cream is well underway.
With the assistance of CMP Sin, DH has already successfully established dialogue with 266 of his patrons, ages ranging from one to 64 years old. While some 120 are still unreachable via contacting means they previously left with Sin, DH declares that it will spare no effort to keep contacting them again.
"From this morning till 5pm, our hotline at telephone number 2125 1133 has received 115 calls," a DH spokesman reveals.
"Especially for clients of CMP SIN Lai-sang who are uncertain or feeling unwell, please feel free to contact us via the hotline or consult healthcare professionals for advice as an alternative," the spokesman urges.
The spokesman adds that meanwhile, surveillance will also be further stepped up by alerting the public hospitals under the Hospital Authority, all 13 private hospitals, the various medical specialty Colleges under the Hong Kong Academy of Medicine and the various Chinese medicine practitioner associations about the incident. They are to notify DH of suspicious or confirmed cases.
"At the moment, our focus is to ensure that patrons who still have the suspicious steroidal cream in hand to cease using it as soon as possible and those in doubt or sick to seek professional advice from healthcare professionals. We will definitely review the existing channels for both internal as well as external communications, with a view to find out the reason(s) for not having acted more promptly in this series of cases and how best to prevent future recurrence," the spokesman reassures members of the public.
Ends/Monday, November 14, 2011
Issued at HKT 22:01
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