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Following is a question by the Dr Hon Kwok Ka-ki and a written reply by the Secretary for Food and Health, Dr Ko Wing-man, in the Legislative Council today (November 18):
Question:
According to the information from the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) under the Department of Health, between January and August this year, the patients of more than half of the reported cases of invasive pneumococcal disease were elderly persons (i.e. persons aged 65 or above). Besides, the number of deaths from pneumonia increased from 3 026 in 2001 to 7 502 in 2014 and among those who died from such disease in 2014, 7 072 were elderly persons. On the other hand, elderly persons may receive pneumococcal vaccination under the Government Vaccination Programme or the Elderly Vaccination Subsidy Scheme (collectively referred to as subsidy schemes) at present. Also, CHP announced in February this year that, as a one-off measure, with effect from March 2 this year, doctors who participated in the related subsidy scheme under the Childhood 13-valent Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV13) Booster Vaccination Programme, if they had remaining doses of government-supplied PCV13, could provide such vaccination for those elderly persons who had never received subsidised pneumococcal vaccination. In this connection, will the Government inform this Council:
(1) whether it has assessed the effectiveness of the aforesaid two subsidy schemes and conducted studies on boosting the rate of elderly persons receiving pneumococcal vaccination; if it has, of the details; if not, the reasons for that;
(2) of the number of the elderly persons who have received the vaccination under the aforesaid one-off measure so far and its percentage in the elderly population; and
(3) whether it will consider implementing pneumococcal vaccination programme for elderly persons on a long-term basis; if it will, of the details; if not, the reasons for that?
Reply:
President:
Pneumococcal vaccination is one of the safe and effective measures to prevent pneumococcal diseases. The Department of Health (DH) has all along been implementing pneumococcal vaccination programmes based on the recommendations of the Scientific Committee of the Vaccine Preventable Diseases (SCVPD) under the Centre for Health Protection.
Based on the recommendations of the SCVPD, the following regular vaccination programmes have been implemented since October 2009 for eligible elderly persons.
(i) "Government Vaccination Programme" (including "Residential Care Home Vaccination Programme") which provides free pneumococcal vaccination for eligible elderly persons aged 65 or above; and
(ii) "Elderly Vaccination Subsidy Scheme" which provides subsidised pneumococcal vaccination for elderly persons aged 65 or above through private doctors who have joined the scheme.
Apart from the above regular programmes, the DH launched a one-off measure in March 2015 to provide eligible elderly persons who have never received pneumococcal vaccination before with 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) so as to utilise the remaining stock under the one-off "Childhood PCV13 Booster Vaccination Programme".
More than 379 000 elderly persons aged 65 or above have received pneumococcal vaccination through the above measures, accounting for about 34 per cent of the age group concerned.
Eligible elderly persons may join the above vaccination programmes any time throughout the year. Implementation of vaccination programmes is indeed one of the Government's long-term and sustained measures in prevention of pneumonia. The DH will continue to monitor the pneumococcal vaccination figures, coverage of vaccination programmes and occurrence of pneumonia among the elderly persons, and pay close attention to the SCVPD's recommendations and the latest development, so as to review the arrangement of pneumococcal vaccination for the elderly.
The SCVPD will convene a meeting at the end of this year and conduct a timely review on the recommendations on pneumococcal vaccination according to the latest local data, scientific information and international recommendations. If the SCVPD has any updated recommendations, the DH will adjust the prevention strategies and arrangements accordingly.
Ends/Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Issued at HKT 16:08
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