HEALTH
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An important task of the Urban Services Department is the regular inspection of some 8,500 licensed premises such as restaurants, fresh provision shops and food factories. Urban Services Depart- ment staff work closely with the Medical and Health Department in the investigation and control of infectious diseases and food- poisoning. General domestic hygiene is controlled by house in- spections carried out at intervals varying from six months to a year, depending on the type of premises. A special staff is engaged on the inspection and sampling of local and imported foods. The health staff are also responsible for investigating complaints from the public, for abating nuisances, and for preventing the breeding of flies and mosquitoes. A pest control section deals with rats, mice, cockroaches, ants, fleas, bed-bugs, midges and, in the New Territories, flies and mosquitoes. Since assuming responsibility from the Medical and Health Department on 1st April 1966, it has also prevented the breeding of malarial mosquitoes throughout the urban areas.
Particular attention is paid to health education by means of publicity campaigns and food hygiene courses for the staff of restaurants, school canteens, clubs and cooked food hawker stalls. During the year training courses were started for the staff of firms of commercial cleaners and for caretakers of multi-storey buildings. Health talks are given in schools and health quizzes held for school children, together with annual speech and singing contests. The kaifong associations co-operate fully in publicity and immunization campaigns, many of them having active health committees of their own. The associations again organized a combined health education exhibition, in which many government departments and voluntary organizations also participated. 'Keep Your District Clean' cam- paigns were held in several districts under the combined auspices of kaifong associations and government departments, and met with distinct success. A special health education section is active in the New Territories under the Principal Medical Officer of Health, New Territories, and pays particular attention to rural sanitation and health.
The supervision of hawkers, markets and slaughterhouses has an important bearing on public health and the Urban Services Department employs a large staff in these fields. There are altogether