Just after Dr Owen Tsang Tak-yin finished his training in infectious diseases, he found himself on the front lines of the 2003 Hong Kong Sars outbreak, which he described as suddenly lonely and stressful.

Tsang, who is now the medical director of the Hospital Authority’s Center for Infectious Diseases in Hong Kong, recalled that at the beginning of the three-month epidemic, the world had little information about Sars, or severe acute respiratory syndrome, and available medical supplies were limited.

“We couldn’t eat when we were confronted by our colleagues… We had to return to our dormitory after work and we couldn’t go anywhere else, it was like a prison,” the 59-year-old said.

“We felt quite alone… We saw that the condition of many young patients was deteriorating and nearly 20 percent of the patients were admitted to intensive care. We also had colleagues who were infected. “It was very stressful.”

But that experience hasn’t dissuaded Tsang from joining efforts to fight other diseases with the infectious disease specialist who is at the forefront of the fight against bird and swine flu, dengue, Ebola, Aids, malaria, Mpox and Covid-19.

For his work, he was named one of nine recipients of the Hospital Authority’s Outstanding Staff Award this year.