Measles Outbreak In Hong Kong Unlikely: Officials

Health officials said on Monday that people in Hong Kong should not panic about a measles outbreak in Japan, because data shows almost everyone in the SAR is already immune to the disease.

The Centre for Health Protection said while the demand for measles vaccines at private clinics has gone up "substantially" in recent weeks, drugs companies say there are enough to go around.

The centre said there were no plans to give jabs earmarked for public programmes to the private sector.

"It takes time for the drug companies to deliver the order ... that could be a factor that [explains] some reports that there is no vaccine in the clinics because they have used up their vaccine to hand. But what they ordered or further ordered is not yet delivered to them," the centre's controller, Wong Ka-hing, told reporters.

Wong cited survey figures from 2015 that suggested at least 95 percent of local children have had the two-dose measles vaccination, and said data from recent years shows that almost the entire population has antibodies to measles in their blood.

A principal medical and health officer from the centre, Albert Au, said therefore, the risk of a measles outbreak in Hong Kong is low.

Wong said pregnant women are advised to avoid areas with measles outbreaks, and parents shouldn't take any children under the age of one to such places. He said people who weren't born in Hong Kong might not have had the two-dose vaccination for measles and they should consider speaking to their doctor before going anywhere where there is an outbreak.

As well as Okinawa, Japan, cases of measles have also been recorded in Taiwan recently.