HKSAR gov't continues tracing COVID-19 through sewage surveillance

HONG KONG, July 17 (Xinhua) -- The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government said Sunday that it will distribute around 250,000 sets of COVID-19 rapid antigen test (RAT) kits as part of a follow-up on the recent detection of the COVID-19 virus in sewage samples.

The test kits will be distributed to residents, cleaning workers and property management staff working in the areas with positive sewage testing results showing relatively high viral loads in order to help identify infected persons.

The HKSAR government also urged RAT kit users to report any positive results for COVID-19 via the government's online platform.

On Sunday, Hong Kong registered 3,313 confirmed locally transmitted cases of COVID-19 and 173 imported cases.

Meanwhile, since the start of a mass inoculation program in February last year, over 6.75 million people, or 92.8 percent of the eligible population in Hong Kong, have taken at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccines, while over 6.49 million, or 89.2 percent of the eligible population, have taken two doses.

As of Sunday, 65.8 percent of the eligible people in Hong Kong have taken their third booster doses, while a total of 180,106 people have taken a fourth dose of COVID-19 vaccine, official data showed.