Press Releases

8 Dec 2017

FPAHK’s 62nd Annual General Meeting

The Family Planning Association of Hong Kong today held its 62nd Annual General Meeting, with Secretary for Food and Health Professor Sophia Chan as the Guest of Honour. The new Chairperson and Council Members were elected at the meeting. 

FPAHK’s Chairperson Ms. Lina Yan, addressing at the meeting, said that with the successful implementation of the 3-year Free Cervical Cancer Vaccination Pilot Scheme, launched in October 2016 with funding from the Community Care Fund (CCF), more than 10,000 teenage girls from low-income families had received the vaccine at FPAHK’s three Youth Health Care Centres. FPAHK also delivered education talks to parents and their daughters to raise awareness of cervical cancer and its prevention. She hoped that this success would encourage the Government to consider providing the vaccine to all girls in future. 

Ms Yan said, as a pioneer and decades-long major player in fighting against cervical cancer in Hong Kong, FPAHK had been working hard on the three pillars of effective prevention, namely population-based cervical screening, advocating safer sexual behaviours and HPV vaccination. She remarked that there were still room for improvement on the cervical screening coverage, with about 70% of women aged 26-64 having ever had a cervical smear and about 55% having had one within the previous 3 years according to the Department of Health’s latest Behavioural Risk Factor Survey in 2016. 

Ms Yan noted that FPAHK’s experiences in programme delivery could be applied to addressing and serving the unmet sexual and reproductive health needs of the ageing Hong Kong population and shared locally and internationally. FPAHK launched the 3-year project “Every Bone Counts 2017-2020” with funding from the Community Chest of Hong Kong in  May this year to offer the dual energy X-Ray absorptiometry (DXA) bone densitometry test to eligible elderly women. The project, with the aim to raise public awareness of bone health and prevention of osteoporosis, especially elderly women, has received positive response. Experience acquired and good practices learnt from it were presented at the Meeting on “Forwarding the IPPF Ageing Policy” organized by the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) in the East and South East Asia and Oceania Region in  February this year in Tokyo, Japan to share with other places in the region. 

In addition to the above-mentioned programmes among the Association’s major works in the past year, Executive Director Dr Susan Fan reported that FPAHK cooperated with the Kwai Tsing District Council to offer free cervical cancer vaccination to 160 eligible girls in the district during July and August. In April, FPAHK attended on invitation a press conference in support of the Prevention Alliance to call for better public awareness of cervical cancer. The “FPAHK Cervical Cancer and HPV Education and Prevention Program for Marginalized Women” had been launched to offer free Pap smears to 300 eligible women from August to December with funding from a pharmaceutical company. 

Dr Fan noted, based on the good response to the Free Cervical Cancer Vaccination Pilot Scheme, FPAHK was being prepared for the expansion of the scope of the scheme to cover more teenage girls early next year. 

On clinical services, a new “Non-invasive Fetal TrisomY test (NIFTY)” had been introduced under the Early Pregnancy Assessment Service. It is a safe prenatal test of the mother’s blood for detecting certain chromosomal abnormalities of the foetus, such as Down’s Syndrome. 

Having concluded her six-year tenure as Chairperson, Ms Yan was elected to be the Vice-President while Dr Cheung Kai-bun succeeded to the chairmanship. 

FPAHK’s President Professor Hextan Ngan extended the Association’s gratitude to the Government, FPAHK’s volunteers, donors and service users for their generous support and contributions. 

The Family Planning Association of Hong Kong Annual Report 2016-2017 is  available on the FPAHK Website (www.famplan.org.hk/fpahk/en).