Tsang sees new direction for CHP -Will retire next week Mary Ann Benitez Wednesday, December 19, 2012 The Centre for Health Protection, created after the chaotic handling of the 2003 SARS outbreak, is likely to change direction under the incoming controller.Thomas Tsang Ho-fai, who has been controller since 2007 when the first head Leung Pak-yin left for the Hospital Authority, will leave next Saturday after 20 years in the Department of Health. He will be succeeded by Leung Ting-hung, a low-profile insider who used to be deputy director of health. Tsang said Leung, head of the surveillance and epidemiology branch, has experience in chronic diseases, traditional Chinese medicine and public health administration. "I am more of an infectious disease guy," Tsang, 45, said yesterday on what could be his last press briefing as controller. |
said the battle between man and germs will continue, adding the threat of bird flu mutating to spark a pandemic remains.
To this end, 40 to 50 laboratory personnel who handle the virulent H5N1 virus will receive the pre- pandemic vaccine from this year.
Tsang said he had been mulling leaving the position at the center since after the swine flu pandemic in 2009 and in September this year he tendered his resignation.
"In my position I'd like to stop a little bit, pause a little bit, like a sabbatical and hopefully I will still be around," he said, adding he would not be joining the World Health Organization or other international agencies.
Its director-general, Margaret Chan Fung Fu- chun, who, when she was Hong Kong's director of health, handpicked Tsang to become the infectious disease point man after he was sent to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in 1998-2000.
Tsang, who is single, said in the short term he would like to spend more time with his parents and travel. "After one year I will have a more solid concept of what I am going to do. Right now I would like to refresh some of my medical studies, pursue some hobbies including music and maybe try some volunteer work." http://www.thestandard.com.hk/news_detail.asp?pp_cat=11&art_id=129392&sid=38509382&con_type=1
