*********************************************************
The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:
The preliminary results of a 10-week screening for Vancomycin Resistant Enterococci (VRE) carriers launched by the Hospital Authority (HA) in all public hospitals indicated a lower than 2 per cent prevalence among the targeted group of inpatients.
The HA Chief Infection Control Officer, Dr Dominic Tsang, said today (January 24) that the targeted screening in all public hospitals completed this Wednesday. It followed an earlier pan-screening programme at Queen Elizabeth Hospital to further minimise the risk of inter-hospital spread of VRE.
"The screening programme targeted inpatients with admission history in the past three months as well as renal patients on haemodialysis. A total of over 20,000 inpatient specimens have been tested during the past 10 weeks," Dr Tsang said.
Test results available up to January 17 indicated an overall positive rate of 1.4 per cent, with individual cluster results ranging from the lowest in Hong Kong West Cluster (0.2 per cent) to the highest in Kowloon Central Cluster (1.7 per cent). A total of 205 occult cases were identified and isolated alongside stringent contact precautions, enhanced hand hygiene and dedicated use of clinical items.
"The large-scale screening exercise has given the HA the opportunity to consolidate experience in identifying high-risk groups, tagging VRE carriers in the information technology system and managing contact tracing of VRE carriers," Dr Tsang said.
"Pending further in-depth analysis of the test results and deliberation among experts of related disciplines, a longer-term infection control strategy will be formulated in preparation for future hospital outbreaks," Dr Tsang added.
The preliminary screening results have been published in the special edition of the newsletter issued by the Chief Infection Control Officer Office of the HA for health-care professionals and public viewing. The newsletter has been uploaded today to the website www.ha.org.hk/goto/cicobiweeklyupdate .
The HA thanks the public for their understanding on the significance of the targeted screening exercise and apologises once again for the inconvenience caused. Dr Tsang also expressed gratitude to all front-line staff for their extra effort to facilitate the smooth running of the screening exercise and the enhanced infection control measures.
Ends/Friday, January 24, 2014
Issued at HKT 17:58
NNNN
