Sentinel Surveillance of Infectious Diseases at Residential Care Homes for the Elderly (RCHEs)

The Centre for Health Protection (CHP) of the Department of Health (DH) has established several surveillance systems in Hong Kong to monitor communicable disease activity at the community and public and private healthcare facilities. With the participation of different partners, CHP will have a more comprehensive picture of the situation of communicable diseases. The sentinel surveillance system based at RCHE is one of the surveillance systems.

This weekly update outlines the data provided by RCHEs participating in the "Sentinel Surveillance of Infectious Diseases at Residential Care Homes for the Elderly". This update aims at informing the public of community-wide trends of infectious disease based on inference from the collected data, and does not represent the situation at any particular RCHE or geographic area.

I. Weekly Overview

Week 6 (1/2 – 7/2)
According to the recent data reported by sentinel RCHEs: - The activities of fever, acute diarrhoea and vomiting were at baseline levels.

scope="col" width="80" style="text-align:center;padding:5;font-weight:bold;"> scope="col" width="80" style="text-align:center;padding:5;font-weight:bold;"> scope="col" width="80" style="text-align:center;padding:5;font-weight:bold;"> scope="col" width="80" style="text-align:center;padding:5;font-weight:bold;"> th_6" colspan="1" class="dnstabletxt" scope="row" width="220" headers="th_1" style="text-align:left;padding:5;">Surveillance period th_6 th_2 " style="text-align:center;padding:5;font-weight:bold;" width="80">1/2 - 7/2 th_6 th_3 " style="text-align:center;padding:5;" width="80">25/1 - 31/1 th_6 th_4 " style="text-align:center;padding:5;" width="80">18/1 - 24/1 th_6 th_5 " style="text-align:center;padding:5;" width="80">11/1 - 17/1 th_7" colspan="1" class="dnstabletxt" scope="row" width="220" headers="th_1" style="text-align:left;padding:5;">Number of elderly (RCHEs) under surveillance th_7 th_2 " style="text-align:center;padding:5;font-weight:bold;" width="80">5870(46) th_7 th_3 " style="text-align:center;padding:5;" width="80">5484(46) th_7 th_4 " style="text-align:center;padding:5;" width="80">5526(45) th_7 th_5 " style="text-align:center;padding:5;" width="80">6218(49) th_8" colspan="1" class="dnstabletxt" scope="row" width="220" headers="th_1" style="text-align:left;padding:5;">Average number of elderly with fever per day (per 1000 elderly) th_8 th_2 " style="text-align:center;padding:5;font-weight:bold;" width="80">1.19 th_8 th_3 " style="text-align:center;padding:5;" width="80">1.22 th_8 th_4 " style="text-align:center;padding:5;" width="80">1.34 th_8 th_5 " style="text-align:center;padding:5;" width="80">1.15 th_9" colspan="1" class="dnstabletxt" scope="row" width="220" headers="th_1" style="text-align:left;padding:5;">Average number of elderly with acute diarrhoea per day (per 1000 elderly) th_9 th_2 " style="text-align:center;padding:5;font-weight:bold;" width="80">0.05 th_9 th_3 " style="text-align:center;padding:5;" width="80">0.18 th_9 th_4 " style="text-align:center;padding:5;" width="80">0.08 th_9 th_5 " style="text-align:center;padding:5;" width="80">0.07 th_10" colspan="1" class="dnstabletxt" scope="row" width="220" headers="th_1" style="text-align:left;padding:5;">Average number of elderly with vomiting per day (per 1000 elderly) th_10 th_2 " style="text-align:center;padding:5;font-weight:bold;" width="80">0.41 th_10 th_3 " style="text-align:center;padding:5;" width="80">0.49 th_10 th_4 " style="text-align:center;padding:5;" width="80">0.41 th_10 th_5 " style="text-align:center;padding:5;" width="80">0.51


				scope="col" width="220" style="text-align:left;padding:5;">Year 2026

Remark: The CHP of DH monitors the overall activity of common infectious diseases through a series of surveillance systems. An increasing trend has been observed in several surveillance indicators of acute gastroenteritis over the past few weeks.

II. Surveillance of Fever symptom

Weekly chart for occurrence of fever in sentinel RCHE, 2025-2026. The activity of fever in week 6 was at baseline level.

III. Surveillance of Acute diarrhoea symptom

Weekly chart for occurrence of acute diarrhoea in sentinel RCHE, 2025-2026. The activity of acute diarrhoea in week 6 was at baseline level.

IV. Surveillance of Vomiting symptom

Weekly chart for occurrence of vomiting in sentinel RCHE, 2025-2026. The activity of vomiting in week 6 was at baseline level.

Methodology

Sentinel RCHEs record the number of elderly with fever, acute diarrhoea and vomiting on each day, and then send the data to the CHP on weekly basis.
The CHP calculates the average number of elderly with each symptom by dividing the total number of elderly having the corresponding symptoms by the total number of elderly in all data submitting RCHEs.