(To watch the whole press conference with sign language interpretation, click here.)

The Hospital Authority announced that it extended the Enhanced Laboratory Surveillance Programme to include investigating people under 18 who can produce deep throat saliva and patients with less severe symptoms from today.

Speaking at this afternoon’s press conference, the authority’s Chief Manager (Patient Safety & Risk Management) Dr Sara Ho said the move would allow them to facilitate Government efforts to manage the overall epidemic.

“Concerning the enhanced surveillance scheme, we extended the investigation to cover those listed as age 18. The doctor will assess clinically whether the patient is capable of producing deep throat saliva.

"For example adolescents, such as those aged 14 to 18, they are actually very competent with producing deep throat saliva."

Dr Ho explained that through the previous scheme, three patients out of 2,499 were found to be confirmed cases, accounting for less than 0.1%.

"We further extended the scope of this enhanced surveillance and the increased scope will be those who are even less symptomatic or have less severe symptoms.

"So this would allow us to have more data on the epidemiological data to facilitate the Government to manage the overall epidemic."