bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

helpersCheckIsPostiesArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

moreOnThisArticles

urlAlias

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

paywallTypes

corrections

sponsorType

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

socialHeadline

headline

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

publishedDate

additionalInfoBoxes

images

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

createdDate

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Kathy Griffin

THE Urban Council rejected warnings issued two years ago that restaurants were keeping fish in polluted water and failed to take action that might have averted the outbreak of cholera.

   Health inspectors began a blitz on seafood restaurants yesterday, as doctors confirmed the sixth case of locally contracted cholera in two weeks.

  The latest victim, a 52-year-old street-sleeper from the Tsuen Wan area, is in Princess Margaret Hospital in a poor condition.

  Eastern District Board member Jennifer Chow Kit-bing alerted authorities in early 1992 to the fact that restaurants were being supplied with water from grossly polluted typhoon shelters.

  The Environmental Protection Department also warned that year that hepatitis A and other diseases could be spread by the water splashing on food and plates as fish were removed from the tanks.

  But the Urban Services Department (USD) did little to control the situation apart from commissioning a study of fish held in tanks of polluted water.

  The study concluded the fish were safe to eat so long as they were cooked properly and Ms Chow said the USD adopted this line, which in effect enabled it to duck responsibility.

  ''After this report was announced early last year, I think they were thinking they had finished their job, there was no more to do. But this report was just a gesture and now the problem comes back,'' she said.

  An inter-departmental working group yesterday decided to prevent water suppliers from taking in polluted water.

  Up to 100 water supply trucks had lined up on Saturday night to take water from the Aberdeen typhoon shelter, only hours after the site was linked to the cholera scare.

  Government departments were trying to identify sources of clean water.

  The USD stepped up surveillance in the shelters and will close affected restaurants until they are disinfected.

  Cheng Tak-wing, senior staff officer of public health in the USD, defended the department's focus on the fish and the need to cook them properly.

  ''We can only control food - the seawater is not a food,'' he said. ''So long as the fish is properly cooked, it's OK.''   Mr Cheng said the department had not policed the use of typhoon shelter water in restaurant fish tanks before because it did not have evidence of a problem until the cholera cases appeared.

  He said the USD was stepping up surveillance of restaurants and typhoon shelters, and investigating with the Regional Services Department the feasibility of using artificial seawater - tap water turned into salt water with special chemicals. The results will be out in two to three months.

  The Government moved to step up its action on seafood restaurants after some of the most recent cases were traced to water taken from the Aberdeen typhoon shelter.

  But the case of the street-sleeper in Tsuen Wan has added to fears that the cholera bug is lurking in other parts of the territory where polluted water is being used to store seafood.

  USD officers took water samples from restaurant fish tanks in 11 Hong Kong Island and Kowloon districts for analysis by the Health Department.

  The Regional Services Department will begin testing water in the tanks of 304 seafood restaurants in the New Territories today, before shifting its attention to the markets next week.

  A spokesman for the Health Department said it would be at least four days before results of the tests were known.

  There have been 10 cases of cholera in Hong Kong so far this year, eight of which were contracted locally.

  Three men and a woman suffering from the disease are still in hospital in a satisfactory condition.

  Dr Yuen Kwok-yung, a microbiologist at the University of Hong Kong, said the latest outbreak was due to a new strain of the eltor biotype of cholera.

      The new strain is no more virulent than the strain responsible for most of the cholera cases in Hong Kong in the past few years, but Dr Yuen warned that it was important for sufferers to seek treatment as soon as possible.



Cholera scare spurs restaurant blitz