The Centre for Health Protection is studying the feasibility of expanding the health declaration arrangement to passengers arriving in Hong Kong via the Express Rail Link.

At a press conference today, the centre’s controller Dr Wong Ka-hing said health authorities are considering the enhanced measures after Hong Kong recorded its second highly suspected imported case of novel coronavirus infection.

Currently, only travellers flying in from Wuhan are required to fill out a health declaration form.

“For the health declaration, I think it is a supplementary measure, a supplement to the temperature screening that we have been implementing all along and also stepped up since the emergence of this novel coronavirus infection elsewhere.

“The health declaration form or the health declaration - if it is a correct or genuine declaration - it may of course help us to gather the health information of the passenger and also it will help us to conduct contact tracing if necessary.

“So we are examining whether we can expand the health declaration to the Express Rail Link station passengers.”

Dr Wong added the centre needs to sort out the logistics and operational matters before expanding the health declaration arrangement to include Express Rail Link passengers.

“But there are of course challenges, because you know the number of passengers is quite big and we do not want to delay their passage.

“So I think it would depend on the logistics and the exact operation and of course manpower etc. So we will take this into account and if all are sorted out promptly, we will implement it right away.”

The Centre for Health Protection will update the reported cases of novel coronavirus infection on its dedicated webpage at 9am and 6pm every day.