Residents wearing face masks shop at a supermarket in Hong Kong, April 14, 2022. (PHOTO / XINHUA)

HONG KONG - Hong Kong reported 523 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday, a further decline from 574 recorded on Friday, bringing the infection tally in the city's fifth wave of COVID-19 to 1,188,800.

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Albert Au Ka-wing, principal medical and health officer of the Centre for Health Protection’s communicable disease branch, said in a press briefing that the new cases comprised 510 local infections and 13 imported cases. 

Responding to a reporter's query about acute hepatitis cases of unknown causes affecting children under 10 years old overseas, Albert Au of the CHP said the there was no link between these cases and COVID-19 vaccination 

He said 252 were confirmed through nucleic acid tests and 271 by rapid antigen tests. 

The 13 imported cases involved travelers from Vietnam, South Korea, UK, Singapore, Thailand, Australia and Canada, he added. Seven of them were detected during the "test-and-hold" arrangement at the Hong Kong International Airport while the remaining six were found at quarantine hotels.

Responding to a reporter's query about acute hepatitis cases of unknown causes affecting children under 10 years old, Au said local health authorities have found no such cases in Hong Kong yet.

He noted that there have recent reports in the US and Europe on acute hepatitis in young children who were tested negative for common causes of hepatitis viruses A, B, C, D, and E. Some of the cases tested positive for adenovirus.

Au stressed that there was no link between these cases and COVID-19 vaccination and the CHP will continue monitoring the cases.

Sara Ho, chief manager (Patient Safety and Risk Management) of the Hospital Authority, said at the same briefing that seven patients who tested positive for COVID-19 died in the last 24 hours while two was one death that was not reported earlier.

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She said the patients were aged between 66 and 102, with five of them having no vaccination record.

The total number of deaths in the fifth wave rose to 9,023, with a mortality rate of 0.76 percent.