Hong Kong health authorities have warned parents not to \u201cblindly follow\u201d overseas changes to childhood immunisation schedules, including the flu and hepatitis B birth dose, after the US scaled back its routine vaccine recommendations for infants.<\/p>\n
The Health Department\u2019s Centre for Health Protection issued the warning on Wednesday in response to a controversial overhaul by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).<\/p>\n
Albert Au Ka-wing, head of the Centre for Health Protection\u2019s communicable disease branch, said Hong Kong disagreed with the American move and would not adopt it, particularly concerning the hepatitis B birth dose.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do not agree with the US recommendation to delay or cancel routine hepatitis B vaccination for newborns,\u201d Au told a radio programme.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny public health policy must be based on scientific evidence and our own local epidemiological situation. Deviation from this path could pose a significant public health risk to the community.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe public should not blindly follow the practices of certain overseas countries or regions and develop unnecessary doubts about our own proven and effective Hong Kong Childhood Immunisation Programme.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hong Kong health authorities have warned parents not to \u201cblindly follow\u201d overseas changes to childhood immunisation schedules, including…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[5960,245,1146,24687,137485,9701,73181,163,91686,3448,85,5196,46,137486,44243,32589,33433,1916],"class_list":["post-261208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-american","tag-canada","tag-cdc","tag-centre-for-health-protection","tag-childhood-immunisation-programme","tag-covid-19-pandemic","tag-dr-albert-au-ka-wing","tag-health","tag-hepatitis-b","tag-hong-kong","tag-il","tag-influenza","tag-israel","tag-measles-outbreaks","tag-rotavirus","tag-the-united-states","tag-vaccination","tag-world-health-organization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}