Screening programme is urged to control hepatitis B
Hong Kong should launch a universal screening programme for hepatitis B, partly because of an influx of mainland migrants, a liver expert has warned.
George Lau Ka-kit, senior lecturer of the medicine department at the University of Hong Kong, said 500,000 people on the mainland died every year of liver diseases - mainly cirrhosis and liver cancer - directly caused by hepatitis B. The death toll is nearly 3,000 in Hong Kong each year.
Dr Lau is one of the funding trustees of the Cheng Si Yuan (China-International) Hepatitis Research Foundation. It is one organiser of a four-day conference on liver problems at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, which ends tomorrow.
Dr Lau estimated about 10 per cent of Hong Kong's population were hepatitis B carriers but the rate in some rural areas on the mainland was double that. He said he was concerned about the influx of new mainland migrants as some might carry the potentially fatal disease and need early treatment.
More than 50,000 mainlanders settle in Hong Kong as part of family reunions every year.
Hong Kong, Taiwan and the mainland have the world's highest hepatitis B rates.
Dr Lau estimated that of the 20 million newborns on the mainland every year, fewer than half were fully vaccinated against hepatitis B and remain unprotected.
Dr Lau said that although hepatitis B, which was mainly spread by the transfer of bodily fluids, would not be transmitted through normal social contact, it was important to identify the carriers as early treatment would save the government at least hundreds of millions of dollars in medical costs a year.
'We are not trying to single out new migrants from the mainland. But from a medical point of view, Hong Kong needs a universal screening of hepatitis B carriers to control the deterioration of the disease in carriers,' he said.
