Hong Kong is planning to limit vaccinations for non-resident children in government-funded clinics after many from mainland China rushed for "safer" immunization options following the "problematic vaccine" scandal.
Worried parents from the mainland rushed to Hong Kong to seek safer vaccines for their children after news broke about a gang busted for distributing vaccines that are already expired and improperly transported in over 20 provinces in China.
To make sure that there is enough vaccine supply for local children from Hong Kong, the city's Maternal and Child Health Centers decided to apply a quota for non-resident children seeking immunization, per a report from Reuters.
"The government's policy is to accord priority to local children," Dr. Teresa Li Mun-pik, assistant director of Health for Family and Elderly Health Services in Hong Kong, declared in a statement.
According to Li, the Hong Kong government will be closely monitoring the use of government-funded services to ensure fair treatment for the locals.
"Since last week, more parents of non-eligible children have been calling to book and inquire about services. In the past, we only had several phone calls a day," she added.
The quota of 120 non-resident children per month will take effect starting April 1.
According to Li, the quota may still change depending on their vaccine supplies.
"We will closely monitor the utilization of services by (non-resident children) and may adjust the quota or withhold new case bookings," she added.
Vaccines in Hong Kong are slightly more expensive than those in the mainland, but parents are going through all the trouble in order to make sure that their children are not injected with the so-called "problematic vaccines."
Because of this, private hospitals and clinics in Hong Kong saw an increase in inquiries on immunization bookings, which are predicted to rise to about 10 to 20 percent more.
In public clinics, health services officers are closely checking if operations are affected by the sudden surge in non-local immunization cases.
"If we could not give an appointment to a new infant case within one to three days, that would mean services were being affected," Hong Kong's Acting Principal Medical and Health Officer for Family Health Services Dr. Joanna Leung Oi-shan stated.