CUHK
News Centre

The COVID-19 pandemic situation in Hong Kong remains serious. The healthcare system and its personnel are under immense pressure. The CUHK Medical Centre, a private teaching hospital fully owned by The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), and CUHK’s Faculty of Medicine have been actively responding to the needs of society. In addition to providing a vaccination service, self-paid COVID-19 PCR testing services will be available to the public starting from today. CUHK will also support the hotline service operated by the Hospital Authority to answer enquiries from patients.

Since its launch last March, the CUHK Medical Centre Community Vaccination Centre has already administered over 525,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine. The clinical staff of the CUHK Faculty of Medicine have continued to participate in frontline patient care in public hospitals. Over 500 faculty staff and students have recently been mobilised to support the government’s anti-pandemic work at various levels to contribute to combatting the latest wave of the pandemic.

Some of the recent actions of CUHK include:

CUHK Medical Centre

• Setting up a dedicated COVID-19 testing centre to provide self-paid Combined Swabs PCR test service, open to booking by the public starting today (18 February 2022);
• Vaccination services continuing to operate, with 12 to 16 booths and daily capacity of around 2,700;
• Supporting the New Territories East Cluster with nurses to operate the Community Vaccination Centre for Children at Yuen Chau Kok;
• Continued operation of general outpatient clinic service for the public and commencing Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) for all attending patients. Patients with a positive FTOCC (Fever, Travel, Occupation, Contact, and Cluster) history will be tested with both RAT and Combined Swab PCR test; 
• Setting up a specimen collection and test centre for staff and patients for deep throat saliva and nasal and throat swab specimens for PCR test.

Faculty of Medicine

• Clinical professors continue to work closely and diligently with Hospital Authority colleagues to provide active frontline patient care services at units most affected by the fifth wave of the pandemic, including intensive care units, paediatric wards and infectious disease wards; 
• Supporting the Hospital Authority hotline service to handle queries from people who have tested preliminarily positive for COVID-19 and are waiting for admission to hospitals or isolation facilities;
• Providing professional swab sampling for people in need to support the Community Testing Scheme;
• Providing operational support to the HA Community Treatment Facility at AsiaWorld-Expo and the North Lantau Hospital Hong Kong Infection Control Centre by mobilising faculty staff and alumni who are registered medical practitioners and nurses;
• Actively engaging in COVID-19-related interdisciplinary research projects, covering topics such as virus transmission, testing and monitoring technologies, effective clinical diagnosis, management, treatment and prevention, long-term effects of COVID-19, outbreak response and infection control measures, as well as vaccine effectiveness and risks.

Professor Rocky S. Tuan, Vice-Chancellor and President of CUHK, said: “I am deeply gratified to witness the continued dedication and spirit of solidarity of CUHK members in fighting COVID-19, particularly during the recent surge in infection. In addition, I would like to pay my heartfelt respect and appreciation to all frontline personnel in Hong Kong, especially medical professionals, for their selfless contribution to the fight against the pandemic.  It is my sincerest hope that all members of the Hong Kong community will work together to overcome the COVID-19 challenge.”