The Hospital Authority (HA) of Hong Kong has prepared to provide professional medical services to the upcoming East Asian Games (EAG), including a plan for preventing the spread of A/H1N1 flu during the competitions.

"A contingency plan has set out the precautionary measures to prevent the spread of the disease among EAG participants and the contingency measures to be implemented should the situation exacerbate during the competition period." HA Chief Manager (Infection, Emergency and Contingency) Dr. Liu Shao-haei said on November 19.

"The plan is in line with the existing HA guidelines for H1N1flu and will be revisited before the EAG in light of the latest development of the disease in Hong Kong," he added.

According to the statistics released by HA on Thursday, in the past week, a total of 866 patients with flu-like symptoms attended the eight Designated Flu Clinics, about 300 less than the number of the previous week.

The EAG is expected to attract a large number of tourists to Hong Kong and large crowds at various ceremony and competition venues. Dr. Liu said there were established contingency response plans for different mass casualty scenarios and infectious disease outbreaks.

Dr. Liu also revealed that nine public hospitals would been designated for the provision of emergency medical services and admission for EAG athletes, officials and related parties.

He pledged that HA would give full support to the Government of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in the area of professional expertise, equipment and manpower resources without compromising the standard and service of local medical services.

The designated hospitals will set up green channels for fast track clinical management of EAG accredited persons and provide support to venue medical teams.

Venue Medical Officer Dr. Jimmy Chan Tak-shing, said that 65 doctors and 65 nurses had volunteered to cover the emergency care of athletes and team officials at the competition venues.

"Special training and briefing sessions on emergency sports medicine have been arranged to equip and update these staff volunteers who will be providing a total of 2,320 man-hours of service at the 21 venues for 22 sports events," Dr. Chan said.

The fifth East Asian Games will be staged in Hong Kong from December 5-13, with some events as basketball and football to be unveiled on December 2.

(Xinhua News Agency November 20, 2009)