The following is issued on behalf of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority:
     
     Delivery versus Payment (DvP) settlement has been fully implemented in Bond Connect starting from today (August 24).  All trades under the Bond Connect have begun to be settled on a DvP basis. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) welcomes this development.
      
     An HKMA spokesperson said there had been strong market demand for DvP settlement since Bond Connect was launched in July 2017. Thanks to the support of the People's Bank of China (PBoC) and the efforts of the relevant institutions in the Mainland and Hong Kong, DvP settlement has been fully implemented in Bond Connect. This increases settlement efficiency and reduces settlement risks, affording greater convenience to international investors investing through Bond Connect. The HKMA will continue to work closely with the PBoC to enhance the Bond Connect platform.

     The Chief Secretary for Administration, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, today (August 24) visited Kowloon City District to keep abreast of developments in the Kai Tak Development (KTD) area.
 
     Mr Cheung toured the facilities of the Hong Kong Children’s Hospital in the company of the District Officer (Kowloon City), Mr Franco Kwok; the Chairman of the Kowloon City District Council (KCDC), Mr Pun Kwok-wah; the Cluster Chief Executive of Kowloon Central Cluster of the Hospital Authority, Dr Albert Lo; and the Hospital Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Children’s Hospital, Dr Lee Tsz-leung. He was pleased to learn that the hospital planned to open in stages from the fourth quarter of this year.
 
     Housed in two 11-storey buildings, the Hong Kong Children’s Hospital will provide 468 beds, operating theatres, an ambulatory care centre and a specialist out-patient clinic. It aims to provide diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation services to children from newborns to 18-year-olds with relevant clinical needs, and will focus mainly on uncommon, complex and serious paediatric cases requiring multidisciplinary management.

     Mr Cheung then went to the hospital podium to have a bird’s eye view of the KTD area. Officers from the Civil Engineering and Development Department gave a briefing on the latest developments of the area.
 
     Mr Cheung said that to facilitate the furtherance of the KTD plan, the Government has taken forward the planning, design and construction of various public works and infrastructure projects in stages in light of the growing population and various developments in the area.
 
     He also visited the Co-Sharing Services Centre under the Lok Sin Tong Social Housing Scheme. He was given a tour of summer activities being held at the Centre and talked to participating children.
 
     He then visited a beneficiary family under the Lok Sin Tong Social Housing Scheme to understand the difficulties they faced in their daily lives. Mr Cheung stressed that the current-term Government strives to develop Hong Kong into a caring and compassionate society and will continue to introduce appropriate measures for the underprivileged.
 
     The Lok Sin Tong Community-based Housing Movement Scheme provides rental units to grass-roots families at affordable rent, with an aim to help improve living conditions of families waiting for public housing. The Scheme also provides community support to the tenants such as after-school child care service to ease their pressure and reduce intergenerational poverty.

     Mr Cheung then visited a number of streets in the To Kwa Wan area to observe the problems of illegal parking and pedestrian congestion caused by tourists in the vicinity.
 
     He pointed out that the District Officer has set up an inter-departmental group with a view to stepping up co-ordination and enforcement actions against the problems concerned at the district level. The relevant government policy bureau will continue to pay close attention to the use of tourism supporting facilities in all districts and maintain close contact with the tourism industry and relevant stakeholders, with a view to introducing practical measures to address the issue.
 
     Before concluding the visit, Mr Cheung met with KCDC members and exchanged views with them on various issues of concern to the district and the wider community. 
 
 

The following is issued on behalf of the Hospital Authority:

     The spokesperson for Queen Mary Hospital made the following announcement today (August 24):
      
     Three patients (one male and two female, aged 7 to 14) of the Haematology, Oncology and Immunology Unit and the Blood and Marrow Transplant Paediatric Ward presented with fever, cough and headache symptoms since August 8. Appropriate viral tests were arranged for the patients and their test results were positive for Respiratory Syncytial Virus. The patients are being treated under isolation and are in a stable condition.
      
     Admission to the ward has been suspended and restricted visiting has been imposed. Infection control measures have already been stepped up according to established guidelines. All other patients in the ward are under close surveillance.
      
     The cases have been reported to the Hospital Authority Head Office and the Centre for Health Protection for necessary follow up.

     Police today (August 24) appealed to the public for information on a man who went missing in Kwai Chung. 
      
     Tsang Chor-ming, aged 48, went missing after he was last seen in a hotel on Wo Yi Hop Road yesterday (August 23) afternoon. His family made a report to Police on the same day.
      
     He is about 1.78 metres tall, 70 kilograms in weight and of medium build. He has a square face with yellow complexion and short black hair. He was last seen wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses, a dark short-sleeved shirt, light blue shorts and dark-coloured shoes.
      
     Anyone who knows the whereabouts of the missing man or may have seen him is urged to contact the Regional Missing Person Unit of New Territories South on 3661 1176 or 9689 7445, or email to rmpu-nts-2@police.gov.hk, or contact any police station.

  

     The Acting Secretary for Food and Health, Dr Chui Tak-yi, appealed to schools to take mosquito preventive measures and to guard against dengue fever when he visited a school in Wong Tai Sin this afternoon (August 24) before the start of the new school year. Following is Dr Chui's remarks at a media session:
 
Reporter: In terms of the suggestion that the schools should hire supervisors to supervise their mosquito control measures, will the Government provide any sort of support for those schools which intend to hire such supervisors?
 
Acting Secretary for Food and Health: Today, we visited one of the schools in Wong Tai Sin area. We understand this school has already assigned a staff designated to supervise their front-line workers and also the pest control company they have hired to do the pest control job. I think this layer of supervision is very important to ensure the quality of service provided, either by the front-line cleaners or the contractors. As demonstrated earlier on, the task to be provided is relatively simple, for example, cleaning the drains, blocking the keyholes in the drain covers and also emptying the plant trays. I think the key point is having another layer of supervision. Adding another layer of supervision would enhance quality. That is the main message.
 
Reporter: In the Wong Tai Sin District Council meeting this morning, some asked if there will be any, like, task force to monitor and tackle the problem.
 
Acting Secretary for Food and Health: The Government has already established a cross-bureau, cross-department Pest Control Steering Committee, which I chair. We had in fact two meetings in the past one week focusing on the discussion on how to enhance the control of the dengue condition over the territory and with the co-operation and also the collaboration and intensify the efforts of all the concerned departments. In that meeting, there were three bureaux involved and also 18 departments. Members of the steering committee are also high-ranking officials to ensure what we have discussed will have actual implementation in the relative departments. So I think we will use that platform as a cross-department collaboration and also execution of all measures that we want to implement to control the dengue condition.
 
Reporter: Would you describe the situation as losing control? And, to what extent will the Government implement a blockade on Cheung Chau?
 
Acting Secretary for Food and Health: We are closely monitoring the number of affected cases every day. As of now, you know, there are 23 confirmed cases of local dengue fever. We will keep very close monitoring of the condition and as I said before, the effort or focus that we must do now is to enhance the anti-mosquito measures in the affected areas. As I said, the most effective measure is to control the spread of the disease by the insect vector. So, we have a special protocol under the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department colleagues to have fogging exercise for the locations where the affected individuals are living or have travelled during the incubation period and that intensive effort will last for over a month. We will continue with that. Another level of control exercise is through the 18 districts. We have the all-out operation and in that operation we will collaborate with local communities, for example, the District Council, headmasters' associations, that sort of local community. And with that effort, we hope to identify the risk areas where we can prioritise our effort and do our anti-mosquito measures effectively.
 
Reporter: Some said that the measures of tackling the problem are a bit outdated. So will the Government use some new technologies to tackle the issue?
 
Acting Secretary for Food and Health: I think it is important to embrace technology in many aspects of the issues under the Food and Health Bureau. Pest control, in particular dengue fever control, is one of the areas now everybody in Hong Kong is paying attention to. So we will actively employ and also welcome suggestions from all parties in the community to advise or give suggestions on how we can incorporate modern technology in the detection or the monitoring of mosquito conditions in Hong Kong.
 
(Please also refer to the Chinese portion of the transcript.)