Fears of measles outbreak in Hong Kong prompt call for vaccines to be provided to private doctors
Hong Kong Medical Association to press for MMR vaccines to be distributed to private clinics as outbreaks of disease in Taiwan and Okinawa heighten public worries in city
The city’s largest doctors’ group, the Hong Kong Medical Association, has urged the government to provide measles vaccines to private clinics amid concerns among the public that an outbreak of the highly contagious virus could occur locally as has happened in Taiwan and Okinawa, Japan.
But health authorities and the Medical Association said on Monday that it was unlikely the city would see an outbreak as 90 per cent of the population have been vaccinated either with the single measles vaccine or MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) shot.
Still, the Department of Health’s Centre for Health Protection and the Medical Association said people should avoid going to measles hotspots such as Okinawa and Taiwan, particularly young children and pregnant women.
“A healthy person would have long-term or lifelong protection after they received the measles vaccines,” CHP controller Dr Wong Ka-hing said.
A healthy person would have long-term or lifelong protection after they received the measles vaccines
Hong Kong children have received the MMR vaccine at age one and a booster shot at Primary One since the 1990s. Until the late 1980s, the stand-alone measles vaccine was given in two doses.
