The Department of Health will stop using chloroform in cough medicine by the end of this year.
The move was announced yesterday by Assistant Director of Health (Special Health Services) Dr Chan Wai-man.
Briefing provisional legislators on a dispensing error at the Central Kowloon Health Centre, Dr Chan said: 'Since last year, Hong Kong has gradually changed the practice of using chloroform as an ingredient in some medicine. At the moment, there are only two cough medicines which contain chloroform.' But the Government had no plans to ban the use of chloroform in medicine.
Chloroform had for years been used in many medicines in Britain because of its anti-irritant and antibacterial properties, and had proved reliable and effective, she said.
Legislators were told the United States had stopped using chloroform in medicine after tests on animals showed it had caused cancer. Dr Chan said: 'To date, however, there is no evidence to show that chloroform will cause cancer in human beings.' She said this month's incident involving dispensing wrongly-mixed cough medicine had had no direct bearing on the Government's move.
'We have all along followed the dispensing situation abroad and we know that the United States has stopped using chloroform,' she said.
