Dear Members,

This is my great pleasure and honor to be elected as President of the Hong Kong Society of Transplantation last year. 2021 was a challenging year. COVID-19 has changed many ways of living across the globe. After this pandemic, life will continue be different. Our Society is going to embrace the change and adapt to this new norm, while continue our work on transplant education and organ donation promotion.

Let me recount the landmark activities over the past 1 year and announce several future activities that are going to take place next year:

Academic activities

1. Annual Scientific Meeting 2021: The meeting was held on 6 June 2021 in hybrid format. We collaborated with Hong Kong College of Physicians in this meeting with the theme of ‘COVID-19 vaccination’. We invited renowned experts including Prof Gregory POLAND (USA), Prof Paul HARDEN (UK) and Prof David HUI (HK) to talk on the role of COVID vaccine in combatting the COVID-19 pandemic in transplant recipients. To celebrate the 60th Anniversary of cornea transplant in Hong Kong, a special session titled ‘So much more than an eye for an eye’ was delivered by Dr KW KAM (HK). Another lecture on anal dysplasia screening in transplant recipient was delivered by Dr Andrew WONG (HK).​

2. Living Kidney Transplant Webinar: We collaborated with Hong Kong Society of Nephrology to hold a webinar titled ‘Living Kidney Transplantation: The Way Forward’ on 13 September 2021. Prof Hideki Ishida (Japan), Dr Samuel Fung and I talked on strategies to overcome immunological barrier with the use of blood group and HLA incompatible kidney transplantation, as well as Paired Kidney Donation, to improve access to kidney transplantation. 156 participants had joined the webinar.

3. CAST 2023: I am delighted to announce that our Society will host the Congress of Asian Society of Transplantation (CAST) in 2023. We are going to hold this Regional Transplant Congress, for the first time in Hong Kong, at Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center on 25-28 August 2023. We invited renowned experts in the region to be members of our Scientific Committee. The scientific program will cover from cutting edge science to ethical issues in transplantation. The Congress website has been launched at cast2023.org. We will open the congress registration and abstract submission by end of this year.​

Public Education and Organ donation Promotion Activities

1. COVID-19 related education: We issued position statements to give information on COVID-19 vaccine use in solid organ transplant recipients in March and November 2021 respectively. Our position statement on COVID vaccine is well recognized and had been incorporated in the interim guidance notes of Centre for Health Protection (CHP) to public. We also posted health advice for transplant patients who were infected COVID-19 in the Society’s Facebook page. We are going to have special session on COVID-19 infection in this year’s Annual Scientific Meeting to update members the latest information on this important topic.

2. RTHK Radio Education Programme: After the success of the Radio Education Programme ‘The “New” Breakthrough of Transplant  (移植「辛」突破)’ last year, we collaborate with the Hong Kong Transplant Sports Association once again and participate in the new radio series ‘The Breakthrough of Transplant by “Heart” (移植「心」突破) ‘. The radio program will be launched in RTHK Putonghua Channel in July to September this year.

3. Social media campaign ‘My Dear, I wanna tell you……’: We will launch a social media campaign ‘My Dear, I wanna tell you…… (親愛的,我想告訴你……)’ soon, to encourage public to speak out their wish to donate to family, and to spread out the message, encourage their family and friends to support organ donation and rekindle the lives of those in need. Please follow our Society’s Facebook page, support and participate this meaningful campaign.

4. Community video competition on Transplantation and Organ Donation: We will organize a community video competition in late 2022. Target participants will be secondary school students. Participants will be invited to join zoom workshop about transplantation and organ donation, and practical tips on video shooting. The winning video will be played in Opening Ceremony of CAST 2023. Dr Kelvin Kai-Wah LEE from Hong Kong Baptist University will be our technical adviser of this competition.

HKST website and social media updates

The Society website has continued to be an active platform for communication and information update. There was major enhancement in Society website this year. Some of the new features of the Society website are as followed:

1. Online membership system: new membership application and annual membership subscription can be done online

2. Members’ area that allows on-demand viewing of Society events, such as annual scientific meeting, as well as other educational resources

In addition, we have setup Society Facebook page since 2019 to ‘connect’ members and public with social media. We uploaded articles and videos about updates in transplant medicine and organ donation regularly. We will continue to promote organ donation and provide transplant education through social media.

Lastly, I wish to express my sincere thanks to all the office bearers and council members for their advice and support. I would also like to thank all members for the unfailing support to Hong Kong Society of Transplantation.

Dr. Maggie Kam-Man MA

President, HKST

17 July 2022