Chief Executive Mrs Carrie Lam visits sewage monitoring facilities at HKU Lab

The Chief Executive Mrs Carrie Lam visited the Environmental Microbiome Engineering and Biotechnology Laboratory at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) today (February 2).

She was accompanied by HKU President and Vice-Chancellor Professor Xiang Zhang. Professor Tong Zhang, of the Department of Civil Engineering and the Lab’s Principal Investigator, briefed Mrs Lam on the work of the Lab.

The innovative sewage surveillance system developed by Professor Zhang’s team has been widely adopted for tracking the Covid-19 virus and its variants over the territory. Under the joint monitoring scheme with the government, it has been generating great impact in society as an important infectious control measure, particularly in detecting positive cases from sewage rapidly and effectively.

Mrs Lam said the government supported the sewage surveillance research which helped combat the Covid-19 outbreaks in HK. She also gave Chinese New Year blessings to staff and students at the Lab.

Mrs Lam later visited the Jockey Club Building for Interdisciplinary Research at Sassoon Road to take a bird-eye view of the site designated for deep technology development at the University. The 4-hectare site zoned “Green Belt” at Pokfulam was assigned in her latest Policy Address for HKU to construct facilities for deep technology research, as one of the measures to consolidate Hong Kong’s leading position in basic research.