ENG-1966 — Page 169

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HEALTH

62 public retail markets where the housewife can buy fresh meat, fish, poultry and vegetables. Many of these are old and outmoded, making it difficult to maintain hygienic standards. The Urban Council has drawn up a programme for reconstructing many of the older markets and for providing new ones in developing areas such as Kwun Tong and North Point. Most of the Colony's meat is supplied from two slaughterhouses managed by the Urban Services Department. Built more than 50 years ago, these will be replaced during 1968 by two modern abattoirs now under con- struction.

Street hawking provides a livelihood for perhaps 100,000 people in the built-up areas of the Colony. The great majority sell vegetables and other foodstuffs in the streets around the markets and fresh provision shops, obstructing already congested streets, hampering street cleansing work, and themselves creating health problems. The Urban Council has adopted a policy of concentrating hawkers in off-street bazaars where space is available, or in minor streets, where they can carry on their business with the minimum of in- convenience to other sections of the community. The enforcement of the regulations governing hawkers is carried out by the Hawker Control Force, established in 1960 to relieve the police of this respon- sibility. With an establishment of 430, working in 28 separate areas where hawkers operate, the force is under strength and there remain large areas where the police are still responsible for the control of hawkers.

RESEARCH

The main lines of non-university research during 1966 continued to be in the fields of virology, cholera and tuberculosis. The virus laboratory continued research work on influenza and other re- spiratory viruses. A small outbreak of influenza A2 strain occurred in February. Arborvirus investigation is confined to haemagglutina- tion-inhibition tests and results still indicate that group B arborvirus may be fairly common in Hong Kong. Further studies were under- taken on serological response both to the continuing poliomyelitis vaccination campaign and to alternative schedules of administration of the vaccine. Preliminary work has started to assess the serological response of children to attenuated live measles virus vaccine. Research continues on cholera, using strains isolated in previous