Secretary for Health Prof Lo Chung-mau today said the Government hopes to work with the community to remove any misinformation related to COVID-19 vaccines.

Speaking to the media after attending a radio programme, Pro Lo pointed out that there is a lot of misinformation in the media and in the community about the adverse effects of the vaccines.

He added that such misinformation includes anti-science and anti-vaccine propaganda that unfortunately is creating a hesitancy among some citizens, especially the elderly, in getting the jab.

“(We will) try to encourage our high-risk population, especially our young kids and the elderly, to boost up the vaccination rate as soon as possible because this will be a serious burden for our healthcare services if these high-risk groups get infected.

“(The) vaccine pass is only one of the strategies. We have been making a lot of publicity in time to publicise, encourage and promote vaccination. Also, we are sending medical teams to the community to try to promote vaccination and to offer vaccination to especially high-risk groups (such as) the elderly population.”

Separately, the health chief said the Government is putting through the Chronic Disease Co-Care Pilot Scheme in the Primary Healthcare Blueprint to promote early detection and diagnosis of illnesses.

“The targeted group is people who are not yet diagnosed with diabetes mellitus. We want to have an early detection of the disease before the development of complications.”

At present, about half of the chronic diseases remain undetected. By the time the diseases are identified from patients, one third of the cases have already developed complications, putting patients in a very high-risk situation while substantially increasing treatment cost, Prof Lo explained.

“By earlier detection, we hope that we can improve the health of these people. At the same time, we ensure that they can receive early treatment in the community rather than treatment for serious complications in the hospitals.”