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Raising awareness of bird flu risks to be stepped up among Hong Kong's minority groups
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 04 December, 2013, 2:02pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 04 December, 2013, 2:35pm
A Tuen Mun clinic where the Indonesian domestic worker has visited. Photo: K. Y. Cheng
Secretary for Food and Health Dr Ko Wing-man said on Wednesday the government would step up promotion on bird flu preventative measures to ethnic minority groups in Hong Kong.
His pledge came after an Indonesian domestic worker was confirmed to be infected with the H7N9 virus. She is the first person in Hong Kong to have contracted the deadly strain of bird flu.
The 36-year-old woman works for a Hong Kong family. She developed symptoms after returning from Shenzhen, where she had slaughtered and cooked a live chicken.
Ko said the highest risk of contracting the H7N9 bird flu were having contact with or slaughtering live poultry.
“Hong Kong should learn from the first confirmed case,” he said on a radio programme.
Ko said the infected helper had not disclosed her contact with live poultry in Shenzhen until she was taken to Queen Mary Hospital for treatment on November 30. She had severe pneumonia and needed an artificial lung to help her breath.
The woman remained in a critical condition and was treated in an intensive care unit on Wednesday morning.
Her infection has prompted a Hong Kong still mindful of the Sars outbreak 10 years ago — which killed 299 people — to activate its flu contingency plan.
Seventeen people who have had close contact with the Indonesian domestic helper have now been isolated at Prince Margaret Hospital for medical observation.
The H7N9 virus has killed 45 of the 138 people infected on the mainland since the first human case was reported in February. One person has also been infected in Taiwan.
Health officials are particularly concerned that the virus might mutate into a form that can pass between humans, causing an epidemic.
Additional reporting by Lai Ying-kit
