The Correctional Services Department is offering some inmates at Stanley Prison tests for hepatitis C.

The department, in collaboration with the University of Hong Kong's faculty of medicine, rolled out a three-year initial scheme at the prison in October. Inmates aged 18 or above with over nine months remaining on their sentences can choose to be tested.

106 inmates had undergone screening as of last month, with two testing positive for the liver infection and getting prescriptions for eight to 12 weeks of treatment.

“We actually moved with our team into the prison, making sure the inmates can get their access to diagnosis and treatment," said lead researcher for the programme, Professor Yuen Man-fung.

“We really want to serve as an example of how this programme could run in the future for similar diseases. And that would help shorten the waiting time for patients or subjects with different diseases.”

Yuen said only about 22,000 people in Hong Kong are believed to have hepatitis C, so screening the whole population would not be a good idea.

“I don't think this is very effective in Hong Kong because the prevalence rate is quite low… What we're now doing is to do what we call micro-elimination strategy. We identify high risk groups and then we do the screening for those high risk groups.”