Hong Kong watching for disease, not 'crying wolf'
While Hong Kong is taking precautions against a Sars outbreak, it would be 'crying wolf' to respond with every possible safety measure to the single new case found in Singapore, the health chief says.
The city would not be well served if hospital staff were ordered to wear full protective clothing whenever a case cropped up elsewhere, said Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food Yeoh Eng-kiong. Being excessively over-cautious would make people less alert when a real outbreak occurred, he said.
He said the case in Singapore was an isolated one.
Dr Yeoh has ordered stepped-up Sars screening for travellers arriving in Hong Kong from Singapore, and told laboratories, hospitals and clinics in the private and public sectors to be on the alert in case there are other cases.
'Those are measures that we think are appropriate,' he said in Manila, where he is attending a World Health Organisation regional conference.
Hospital Authority chief executive William Ho Shiu-wai said public hospitals had stepped up precautions against Sars. If several medical staff or patients in the same ward or medical unit of a hospital catch influenza, the hospital must immediately report the occurrence to the Department of Health. An alert would also be triggered if three or more residents of an old people's home developed flu, he said.
Kwok Ka-ki, convenor of the Concern Group on Sars, urged the government to vaccinate the elderly and patients with chronic illnesses against influenza to protect them from Sars-like symptoms.
Fanny Law Fan Chiu-fan, the Permanent Secretary for Education and Manpower, said that there were no plans to introduce new anti-Sars measures in schools in Hong Kong.
