HONG KONG: Human swine flu vaccination is now available at more than 1,000 venues in Hong Kong. Joining the 220 public clinics, 918 private doctors in Hong Kong have started to provide government-subsidized H1N1 vaccinations.

"There are plenty of venues for people to choose from for the vaccination," Acting Secretary for Food and Health Gabriel Leung said.

A total of 380,000 doses of vaccination have been ordered by 695 private clinics out of the 918 private clinics that have joined the scheme, which represents an average of 54 doses per clinic.

"We will provide more vaccination doses to the private clinics if they ask for more," said Centre for Health Protection controller Thomas Tsang Ho-fai.

People may need to pay an extra service fee at some of these private clinics. About 25 percent of these private clinics will not charge any extra service fee, while about 50 percent would charge less than an additional HK$100. Two clinics have reported that they will charge an extra HK$850.

A total of 8,759 doses of human swine flu vaccine were administered between 1 pm on December 24 and 1 pm yesterday.

Among them, 7,792 were inoculated at public clinics while the eHealth System received 967 vaccination reimbursement claims from private doctors.

This brings to 32,297 the cumulative total of swine flu inoculations administered since the start of the vaccination program on December 21.

"People have started to accept the scheme and will consider getting the vaccination," said Leung who treated the situation as a positive signs.

For Hong Kong residents who belong to the three target groups - chronic patients and pregnant women, children aged from six months to under six years and elderly aged 65 or above - subsidized H1N1 vaccinations can be administered by private doctors who have joined the scheme.

The first batch of 500,000 vaccine doses arrived in Hong Kong in mid-December, while the remaining 2.5 million doses are expected by January 2010.

(HK Edition 12/29/2009 page1)