The Government has amended the Prevention & Control of Disease Ordinance to delete swine flu from the list of statutorily notifiable infectious diseases.
Human swine influenza virus type A (subtype H1) has also been removed from the list of infectious agents in the ordinance’s schedule 2, which required the owner or the person in charge of a laboratory to notify the Director of Health immediately in case of a leakage of any scheduled infectious agent in the laboratory that may pose a public health risk.
The Centre for Health Protection today said, based on experience with past pandemics, the human swine flu virus is expected to take on the behaviour of a seasonal flu virus and continue to circulate in the community for some years to come.
The centre therefore considers it no longer necessary for the disease to be included as one of the infectious diseases statutorily notifiable by doctors.
