Attention duty announcers, radio and TV stations:

     The fire danger situation today (February 21) is red and fire risk is extreme. The countryside is extremely vulnerable to fire. If you are planning to spend the day in the countryside, please take pre-cooked food for a picnic and take all measures to prevent hill fires. The penalty for lighting fires illegally in the countryside is $25,000 and a year's imprisonment.

     The Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) attached great importance to the incident concerning food quality of school lunch boxes. The department convened a meeting this morning (February 20) with the meal box supplier, Luncheon Star, and requested the latter to give an account of its follow-up work in response to the incident. A representative of the Education Bureau also attended the meeting.

     During the meeting, the FEHD was briefed by the supplier on its review and follow-up work after the incident, and the specific measures it will take to ensure food quality. The department has requested the supplier to submit a written report on the incident within days. It has also stressed that the supplier has the responsibility to improve the meal box production process and ensure food safety, and that the department will seriously handle any violation of the relevant requirements.

     In parallel, test results of the samples collected by the FEHD last week have been obtained. Among the 11 food samples, nine were tested against food borne pathogens while the remaining two were tested to determine whether they were cooked. The test results are all satisfactory. Besides, the test results of all the 25 environmental swabs samples are also satisfactory.

     After the incident came to the notice of the FEHD early last week, the department had contacted the school concerned immediately to learn more about the situation and arranged inspections to the licensed food factories of the supplier concerned in Sha Tin, Yuen Long, Eastern District and Kwun Tong, with food samples and environmental swabs samples collected for testing. The FEHD also received last week two suspected food poisoning outbreaks referred by the Centre for Health Protection of the Department of Health, involving the lunch boxes provided by the supplier concerned, and complaints about lunch boxes lodged by different schools. For the sake of prudence, the FEHD had ordered the supplier to stop producing and supplying the food in question until the investigation was completed.

     A spokesman for the FEHD said, "The supplier concerned earlier announced that it would suspend the supply of meal boxes to schools today and tomorrow, so as to re-examine all production processes and conduct deep cleaning and disinfection of the food factories. The FEHD will arrange inspections to these food factories again to ensure that the relevant licensing conditions are observed and the hygienic standards stipulated in the laws are met."

     "The FEHD will take into consideration the above-mentioned test results, the report to be submitted by the supplier and the results of rounds of inspections to decide whether further action has to be taken," the spokesman added.

     Apart from the follow-up actions targeting the above-mentioned meal box supplier, with schools gradually resuming full-time face-to-face classes and arranging meals for students on campus, the FEHD has stepped up inspections since February 13 according to its earlier action plan to some 200 licensed food factories endorsed to supply school lunch boxes, and reminded operators of the proper way of handling school lunch boxes. The inspections will be completed within this week. The FEHD has also sent letters to school management and lunch box suppliers earlier, urging them to pay attention to the food safety of lunch boxes supplied to students. Moreover, the department will organise online trade talks to remind lunch box suppliers that they should follow good hygienic practices during food preparation and develop a food safety plan based on the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point system.

     The Centre for Food Safety (CFS) of the FEHD, through the routine food surveillance programme, has all along been taking food samples from local licensed food factories (including those endorsed to supply lunch boxes) for testing every year to ensure that the food complies with the legislative requirements and is fit for human consumption. In the past two years, the CFS collected 200 samples for microbiological testing from food factories endorsed to provide lunch boxes, among which eight were taken from the lunch box supplier concerned, and all results were found satisfactory.

  

The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:

     The Hospital Authority (HA) spokesman made the following announcement today (February 20) regarding completed inspection of all surgical lights concerned in public hospital operation rooms:

     The HA has completed the inspection of a total of 50 surgical lights of various models manufactured by Getinge in operation rooms of public hospitals. It is confirmed that 34 of them are safe and can continue to be used, while screws used in the remaining 16 surgical lights of various models may be at risk. Therefore, the HA has suspended the use of the surgical lights concerned and urged the vendor to replace the screws at risk as soon as possible to ensure the safety of patients and staff.

     The Senior Manager (Engineering) of the HA, Mr Yuen Pak-leung said, "The HA is very concerned about the incident, and the safety of patients and staff is our prime concern. In response to expert's advice, the team responsible for maintaining and repairing medical devices has thoroughly inspected all surgical lights from the same manufacturer in the past few days. Patients and staff can rest assured that the operation rooms, which are maintaining normal service, have been confirmed to be safe while the surgical lights with safety concern have been suspended."

     The HA has always established procedures for regular inspection and maintenance of surgical lights. After the incident, the vendor has been requested to increase the number of inspection to once in every one to two weeks from now on. In addition, in order to address the safety concern, the HA has arranged inspection for surgical lights of other manufacturers, which is expected to be completed in the next few days. The HA has also formulated the latest guidelines on using surgical lights for staff reference to strengthen the protection of patients and staff.

     The Chief Manager (Clinical Effectiveness and Technology Management) of the HA, Dr Jeffery Lai said, "The operation rooms that are confirmed to be safe has resumed service. However, services in 16 operation rooms distributed in different hospital clusters are still temporarily suspended. A few amount of elective operations are affected and need to be rescheduled. Public hospitals have successively informed patients affected and rescheduled the operations and will provide assistance to patients."

     The HA Head Office received a report from United Christian Hospital last Saturday (February 18) and has immediately conducted a comprehensive inspection with the vendor in all public hospitals. Independent engineering expert on incident analysis, Dr Eric Lim, is also entrusted to investigate and to understand the cause of the incident. The HA has requested the vendor to submit a report. The HA will stringently follow up on the incident and take appropriate actions to make the vendor hold responsible in order to prevent similar occurrence.

     The surgical light at United Christian Hospital which felt down was manufactured and maintained by the manufacturer Getinge. It has been used since 2015 and last underwent maintenance in December 2022.

     Police today (February 20) appealed to the public for information on a man who went missing in Western District.
      
     Tai Te-man, aged 80, went missing after he was last seen on Hill Road yesterday (February 19). His family made a report to Police on the same day.
      
     He is about 1.68 metres tall, 59 kilograms in weight and of medium build. He has a square face with yellow complexion and short white hair. He was last seen wearing a claret jacket, dark-coloured trousers and black sport shoes.
      
     Anyone who knows the whereabouts of the missing man or may have seen him is urged to contact the Regional Missing Person Unit of Hong Kong Island on 2860 1040 or 9886 0034 or email to rmpu-hki@police.gov.hk, or contact any police station.
     

  

     Police today (February 20) appealed to the public for information on a woman who went missing in Kwun Tong.
      
     Chan Ka-wing Ivy, aged 45, went missing after she left her residence on Laguna Street on February 18. Her family made a report to Police on the next day.
      
     She is about 1.6 metres tall, 50 kilograms in weight and of medium build. She has a round face with yellow complexion and long straight black hair. She was last seen wearing a white long-sleeved shirt, a red vest, black trousers, black sport shoes, carrying a red handbag and a white suitcase.
      
     Anyone who knows the whereabouts of the missing woman or may have seen her is urged to contact the Regional Missing Persons Unit of Kowloon East on 3661 0316 or 9020 2746 or email to rmpu-ke-2@police.gov.hk, or contact any police station.