Health Bureau (SSM) Centre for Disease Prevention and Control Director Lam Chong attending yesterday’s Macau Forum as a guest speaker said his bureau has provisionally concluded that Macau’s measles situation is under control.
The weekly debate programme is hosted by government-owned broadcaster TDM at its Macau Forum studio in Zape every Sunday.
Yesterday’s focus of the forum was on Macau’s measles situation.
Macau has recorded 26 measles cases so far this year, according to an SSM statement last night, which pointed out that no measles cases were recorded on three consecutive days, from Friday to yesterday. The latest case – the 26th one – was recorded on Thursday, an American football assistant coach, according to an SSM statement on Thursday, said that the Ecuador-born 28-year-old male coach is a Macau resident who had visited the private Kiang Wu Hospital on March 6 where he had contact with one of the previous measles patients.
26 cases
Among the 26 cases recorded so far this year, 10 have been classified as imported cases and 16 as cases related to imported measles, according to last night’s statement, which said that all of the 26 patients have meanwhile been discharged from
hospital after recovery.
This year, Macau and Hong Kong have been hit by measles. Measles has been a hot-button issue in Macau since the Health Bureau hastily convened two press conferences on March 20 and 22 respectively to brief the media about Macau’s measles situation.
During the press conference on March 20, SSM officials noted that only three measles cases – all of them imported – were recorded
last year, while the bureau had already confirmed eight cases at that time – of which five were classified as imported cases and three as cases related to imported measles. The officials acknowledged that this year was seeing a “significant” year-onyear increase in such cases.
During the March 20 press conference, SSM officials pointed out that Macau was officially declared measles free in 2014, when it was one of the first four countries and regions in the Western Pacific region to had eradicated the disease, but various regions have registered measles outbreaks lately, such as the Chinese mainland, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Europe.
14 infected by one patient Speaking during yesterday’s forum, Lam said that among the 16 cases related to imported measles, 14 patients were infected by a patient in Kiang Wu Hospital who was diagnosed with measles on March 8.
Health Bureau (SSM) Centre for Disease Prevention and Control Director Lam Chong speaks to reporters on the sidelines of TDM’s Macau Forum at the broadcaster’s Macau Forum studio in Zape yesterday. Courtesy: TDM
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