Secretary for Health Lo said earlier that he is considering setting up a regulatory agency similar to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to directly approve drugs into the market. Hung Fan-yi, Head of the Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Professor of the Department of Internal Medicine of HKU, endorsed the idea in a radio programme today (8 December), believing that Hong Kong has advantages and rich clinical research experience in both the world and the Mainland, but believes that the establishment of a drug approval body is the final stage, and the first step is to set up a local production line: "If Hong Kong has its own production line, it can do research in a one-stop laboratory, and if it is successfully developed, it can greatly shorten the application time (to patients)."

(Profile photo/Photo by Liao Yanxiong)

Kong Fanyi: The clinical research of Hong Kong drugs is internationally recognized

Mr Kong pointed out that Hong Kong has international recognition in the clinical research of drugs and has self-developed vaccines, and hopes that Hong Kong can set up its own R&D drug production line to shorten the time from R&D to application to patients, so as to truly achieve "one-stop" services. He also pointed out that at present, the demand for medical beds in public hospitals is large and medical staff are insufficient, and he suggested that hospitals should allocate manpower from within a short period of time to improve promotion opportunities and retain talents.

Self-set production line shortens the time from R&D to application to patients to achieve a true "one-stop" service

Hung said that if Hong Kong has self-developed and produced drugs, he believes that the price can be more affordable and does not have to rely on mainland production lines for a long time: "If you rely entirely on the mainland, it will be much slower, because every second counts a lot of times." It can also benefit the world, encourage clinical researchers and local scientists to conduct drug research, and help attract global research talents to Hong Kong.

▼February 2022, 2 Caritas Hospital emergency outdoor patients waiting under the tabernacle▼

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Kong Fanyi: The new crown epidemic in Hong Kong is gradually falling Mary has fewer than 20 patients in hospital

Hung also pointed out that according to the figures of the Hospital Authority and Queen Mary Hospital, the current epidemic situation in Hong Kong is slowly declining, taking Mary Hospital as an example, less than 20 new crown patients are currently hospitalized, all of them are the elderly, people with long-term illnesses or people who have not completed vaccination, and some of them have serious cases such as pneumonia or other complications.

He added that Japan and South Korea, like Hong Kong, have just experienced a small peak of the new crown epidemic, but the northern hemisphere has generally begun to decline. As for the southern hemisphere, the coronavirus epidemic has also fallen, but it is still at the peak of influenza in winter. Coupled with the increase in public travel, cases of upper respiratory tract and infectious diseases also increased.

He also stressed that the most important thing for the overall decline of the global epidemic is to continue to maintain personal and hand hygiene, suggesting that many indoor places can consider wearing masks, believing that the elderly and chronically ill patients are still at risk of infection, and called on the public to strengthen personal hygiene, especially hand hygiene, and continue to wear masks in indoor places.

He mentioned that with the increase in outbound travel and overall crowd flow, the circulation of different viruses has also accelerated, and there are more cases of upper respiratory tract and infectious diseases, and there are still risks for the elderly and chronically ill patients to travel abroad, and it is recommended to wear masks when there are many people indoors or on public transport during travel. He also suggested that high-risk groups receive a booster dose to strengthen protection 6 months after the last vaccination or infection.

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