Health
Disease Prevention and Control
The department spent $3.5 billion on disease prevention and control at its maternal and child health centres, elderly health centres and similar facilities in 2016-17.
Centre for Health Protection
The Centre for Health Protection collaborates with local and international counterparts to prevent and control diseases in Hong Kong. It works on three principles: real-time surveillance, rapid intervention and responsive risk communication. The centre keeps track of communicable diseases and issues surveillance reports regularly, as well as reports on laboratory data.
A board of scientific advisers and six scientific committees meet periodically to help the centre formulate policies to improve the health protection system.
The centre liaises closely with District Councils and Healthy Cities projects at the district level and solicits their support to disseminate health information and guidelines, to alert the public to health threats and facilitate rapid implementation of preventive measures, and to carry out other health promotion activities. It also shares professional knowledge and experience in combating diseases with health authorities on the Mainland, in Macao and at the WHO.
Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases
The Prevention and Control of Disease Ordinance specifies 50 statutory notifiable infectious diseases in Hong Kong. In 2017, 18,774 cases were reported, of which about 9,353 and 4,550 were diagnosed as chickenpox and tuberculosis respectively.
The centre continually reviews and updates its strategies for coping with major outbreaks of infectious diseases, including an influenza pandemic, the Ebola virus disease, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome and Zika virus infection, ensuring both the government and the community are prepared to deal with them.
Up to December 2017, Hong Kong had confirmed 21 human cases of avian influenza A (H7N9) since the city reported its first human case in December 2013. All were sporadic imported cases.
Vaccination
Children are protected against communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, hepatitis B, poliomyelitis, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox and pneumococcal disease under the Childhood Immunisation Programme.
The government provides free and subsidised seasonal influenza vaccinations to elderly people, children and other target groups under the Government Vaccination Programme and Vaccination Subsidy Scheme. The programme provides eligible people with free vaccinations each year at public hospitals and clinics, residential care homes for the elderly, residential care homes for persons with disabilities, and designated institutions serving persons with intellectual disability. The scheme offers private doctors a subsidy of $190 for each seasonal influenza vaccination they give to eligible people.
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