Dr. Tak Lee passed away on 26 August 2022.

<Obituary by Dr. Marco Ho and Professor Gary Wong>

<Obituary by Christopher Lai>

The HKIA Awards Presentation Ceremony was held on 9 November 2021 with the AGM 2021. For full list of awardees and their citations, please <click here> to view.

The BSACI are the UK’s leading organisation for healthcare professionals caring for patients with allergy. They would like to invite you to join their annual conference which this year will focus on ‘Allergy and immunology across a lifetime’. World leading experts will share their expertise on the most current and topical issues in allergy and clinical practice and offer the latest insights in basic science.

To view the full programme and secure your place at the conference visit www.bsacimeeting.org

Dr. William Frankland MBE (“Bill” as he is known all over the world) passed away on 2nd April, 2020 at the grand age of 108 years.

He was an amazing man, superb clinician scientist, brilliant raconteur, close colleague and a good friend. He was the grandfather of the specialty of Allergy in the UK and a global icon.

<click here to view full tribute>

• Review of monoclonal antibody therapies in asthma and allergic diseases - a new paradigm for precision medicine
  <click here for the news>

• Nightmares, hallucinations, depression: side effects of asthma drug prescribed to children for minor coughs and hay fever
  <click here for the news>

• 2020 American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology: Characteristics of Chinese fish-allergic patients: Findings from double-blind placebo-controlled food challenges
  <click here for the news>

Click for more details

This year's AGM was held physically on 7 November 2023 at The Hong Kong Club. Council members and many members attended the meeting and had an enjoyable evening!

The 12th Hong Kong Allergy Convention was successfully held on 7 - 8 October 2023 at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. With the theme of "Advances in Allergy Care 2023", the programme highlighted the novel discoveries in mechanisms and development of cutting-edge treatment and preventative paradigms for allergic diseases. A group of prominent speakers in the field of Allergy, Asthma and Clinical Immunology delivered state-of-the-art lectures in exciting areas of fundamental and applied science as well as teaching on new approaches to personalized practice.

The Organizing Committee would also like to extend their sincere thanks to all the speakers, the supporting organizations and sponsors for their ever unfailing support.

Course Highlights:

• Taught by international faculty from Hong Kong and Australia
• Focus on penicillin allergy delabelling
• Practical skills in clinical drug allergy and safe drug allergy testing
• Designed for frontline healthcare professionals, especially general practitioners, family medicine physicians and nurses
• Physician (ADAPT-P) and nursing (ADAPT-N) streams available
• In-person teaching at HKU
• Co-led by HKU, the University of Western Australia and the Hong Kong Institute of Allergy

<click here for registration>

<click here for the rundown>

The Hong Kong Allergy Alliance Educational Symposium on Allergy in Hong Kong was successfully held on 26 February 2023 (Sunday) at The Hong Kong Academy of Medicine, Aberdeen Hong Kong.

The theme of the Symposium is "Improving Allergy Care Standard through Transdisciplinary Collaboration". The Symposium is an unparalleled opportunity championed by the highest academic medical institution of Hong Kong to bring aboard the Colleges in its Academy family to promote allergy education.

Appreciation dinner for editors and subeditors of HKIA’s e-newsletter was hosted by the Chief Editor, Dr. Jane Chan on 27 October 2018.

A boat trip for members was organized on 12 November 2017 (Sunday). The weather was unfortunately uncooperative but nonetheless it was quite an enjoyable outing. The boat was comfortable and the lunch at Sai Kung was fulsome with very fresh seafood. Participants even had a surprise of having a celebrity co-diner eating at same restaurant who took a selfie with each of the party.

The HKIA e-Newsletter (Fall 2023 issue) was launched in November 2023. Click here to read the newsletter.

PRAISE-HK means Personalized Real-time Air Quality Informatics System for Exposure – Hong Kong. It is a new mobile app launched by the HKUST Institute for Environment. It aims to help users reduce their exposure to outdoor air pollution. HKIA is in full support to this app. Hopefully, it will help build Hong Kong into a world-class smart and healthy city.

HKIA’s analysis of the current provision of Allergy services has just been abstracted online by the Asian Pacific Journal of Allergy and Immunology www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29223147/. The full paper is published in the Journal’s December issue.

As expected there is an overall unmet need of Allergy specialists in Hong Kong. Importantly there is an imbalance between adult and paediatric allergists with 5 fold more paediatric allergists relative to their adult counterparts per head of population. Unless this is rectified there will be very serious problems as the numbers of allergic children outgrow paediatric care.

Please read the paper and if you agree please update your managers and help us to lobby for an expansion of Allergy services in Hong Kong.

<click here to view the full article>
<click here to view the executive summary>

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of HKIA, the council has published 2 anniversary books, one on institute’s development and the other one for public education on allergy. Please click the below to download the books.
<20th Anniversary Book>
<過敏睇真D>

Our Visiting Professional Programmes (VPPs), also known as attachments, are offered to clinicians who wish to undertake a period of observership or undertake hands on clinical practice and experience Guy’s and St Thomas’ in operation as a quaternary London teaching hospital. Programmes typically range from six weeks to twelve months.
<click here for more information>

"World Energy Outlook Special Report on Energy and Air Pollution 2016" by the International Energy Agency has been published.
<Click here for more details>

HKIA is publishing a series of 12 educational articles in the Hong Kong Economic Journal (信報醫療版) biweekly starting from 25 May 2016. They can be read as below:
<Click here for the articles>

Please be advised that Environmental Protection Department will launch a video series entitled "Clean Air and You" which are available in three languages, including Cantonese, English and Putonghua. You can download the episodes from their website at: http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/
english/environmentinhk/air/
prob_solutions/clean_air_you.html