Content
Preamble
1
Chapter One: Reduce Risk of Human Infection
3
Reinforce public health infrastructure
3
Reduce risk of human acquiring disease from animals
3
Promote and protect travel health
4
Prevention in the health care sector
5
Prevention in the community
8
Chapter Two: Early Detection of Influenza Pandemic
16
Surveillance of the local scene
16
Chapter Three: Enhance Emergency Preparedness and Response
18
for Influenza Pandemic
Contingency planning
18
Overall Government response
18
Hong Kong Government Response Systems
18
Command structure
20
Functions of steering committee
23
Rapid intervention
26
Risk communication
27
Conclusion
27
Annex A
28
Annex B
29
Annex C
31
Annex D
38
Annex E
44
1
Emergency Preparedness for Influenza Pandemic in Hong Kong
Preamble
In human history, influenza pandemics caused by novel virus strains had led to
significant morbidity, mortality and economic loss globally. Three pandemics
occurred in the last century – in 1918-19 (‘Spanish flu’), 1957-58 (‘Asian flu’)
and 1968-69 (‘Hong Kong flu’). The most severe – that of 1918-19 – is
estimated to have killed between 20 and 40 million people worldwide, a greater
toll than the whole of the World War I. In Hong Kong, we have already faced
the challenge of the first avian influenza outbreak of H5N1 in 1997 which
resulted in 18 people being infected of which six died. The outbreak was
brought under control with intensive collaborative Government efforts on
depopulation of all live chickens. Sporadic cases of avian influenza, though,
have been identified: H9N2 (2 cases in 1999, 1 cases in 2003, 1 case in 2007),
H5N1 (2 cases in 2003).
For an influenza pandemic to occur, there should be three pre-requisites:
emergence of a novel influenza virus subtype or re-emergence of an old
subtype to which the general population has little or no immunity;
the new virus must be able to replicate in humans and cause serious ill