1 June 2004

Dear Doctor,

Central notification system for infectious diseases

We wish to inform you about a more convenient system to notify infectious diseases that comes along with the setting up of the Centre for Health Protection (CHP) under the Department of Health (DH).

Previously, the DH's four Regional Offices (Hong Kong, Kowloon, New Territories East, New Territories West) have been receiving notifications of infectious diseases. With effect from June 1, 2004, the four Regional Offices are reorganized into one location, which is called the Surveillance and Epidemiology Branch (SEB) under the CHP.

The SEB operates a central notification office to receive disease reports all over Hong Kong. These reports may include statutorily notifiable infectious diseases, outbreaks in institutions, unusual symptom clusters, rare infectious diseases of public health significance, as well as poisoning incidents due to herbal medicine or heavy metal. The contact details of the SEB central notification office are:

The SEB central notification office operates during normal office hours. To report diseases requiring immediate attention outside office hours, please call SEB's on-call Medical Control Officer at 71163300 call 9179.

We hope this centralized notification system will make it easier for doctors to report disease outbreaks. In the meantime, the previous telephone and fax numbers of the four Regional Offices will automatically direct to the SEB.

Thank you for your attention.