Press Release - April 11, 2003

A territory-wide cleansing day will be held on April 19 in Hong Kong to step up cleaning and disinfection of buildings and hygiene blackspots in the fight against Atypical Pneumonia (AP), the Secretary for Home Affairs of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), Dr Patrick Ho, announced today (April 11).

Speaking after the second special meeting of the Clean Hong Kong District Promotion Committee, Dr Ho said: "We launched a territory-wide cleansing campaign to encourage the entire community to keep households, work and entertainment places clean just two weeks ago. It is important for us to sustain our efforts to maintain a clean environment and we are therefore organizing a large-scale cleansing day again next Saturday to step up cleaning operations. This time we will focus on environmental blackspots, including rear lanes and older tenement buildings, which may contain health hazards."

He said: "I call on the continuous support of District Councils, Area Committees, Mutual Aid Committees, owners' corporations, residents' associations, district organizations and property management companies to join hands with us to properly clean up and disinfect the environment."

Staff of the Home Affairs Department, Food and Environmental Hygiene Department of the HKSAR and the Housing Department will work out a priority list, on the basis of health hazard assessments, to guide the cleaning operations in various districts.

In the past week, 2.7 million copies of guidelines on disinfection of households have been distributed to every household in Hong Kong. Another 200,000 copies of guidelines on inspection and disinfection of common areas of buildings have also been printed for distribution to property management companies and related agents and associations.

More than 100 health talks on the prevention of AP have been held in Hong Kong since mid-March.

For updated information and latest news on respiratory tract infections, please visit the special home page on the subject at www.info.gov.hk/info/infection-e.htm, and the HKSAR Department of Health website at www.info.gov.hk/dh/ap.htm as well as the e-bulletin at www.news.gov.hk/en/index.shtml.