On 30 November, 2024, the Rare Diseases Symposium 2024, with the theme of “Living Connected, Brightens Living with the Rare”, was successfully held at Nina Hotel Tsuen Wan West. This year's Symposium was held on-site only, with over 250 participants, representing an attendance rate of nearly 90%.

There were 41 speakers from Mainland China, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Korea and Hong Kong, including government officials, medical experts, academics, policy advocates and representatives from patient organisations. To enrich the experience of the speakers, RDHK arranged a visit to the Hong Kong Children's Hospital, which specializes in serious, complex, uncommon and multidisciplinary paediatric diseases, on the day before the seminar to impress the speakers.

RDHK is honored to have Professor LO Chung-mau, Secretary for Health, Mr. LI Linkang, Executive Director, China  Alliance for Rare Diseases, and Professor LAU Chak-sing, Vice-President & Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Health) and Dean of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, to attend the Opening Ceremony to deliver speeches. The Symposium commenced with talks of the following themes:

• Rare Disease Diagnosis and Treatment Research in China
• Rare Disease Service Development in Hong Kong and HKU-Shenzhen Hospital
• The Region’s Role in Shaping the Impact of the World
  Health Assembly Resolution on Rare Diseases
• Scientific Exploration from Laboratory to Clinic

In the afternoon, three parallel sessions were held: Rare Neurological Disorders, Rare Skeletal Dysplasia & Orthopaedic Disorders, and Rare Disease Patient Organisation Exchange Session. Participants were free to choose the sessions they were interested in. The most popular session was the Patient Organization Sub-forum, where 14 leaders of patient organisations from Mainland China and Hong Kong shared their experiences and insights, and there were many questions from the audience, which made the whole event very interactive.

The Symposium was very well received, and many participants commented that this year's Symposium was more informative and beneficial than the previous ones, and that they would definitely join us again next year!

Once again, we would like to thank all the guest speakers, audience, supporting organisations, RDHK Council members, staff and volunteers, venue staff, as well as Enter-Link for their on-site interpretation service. Thanks to everyone's support and participation, the Symposium was successfully held.

You are welcome to view and download the photos of the day in the Galleries of this website.

Last but not least, we would like to thank all the sponsors for their unfailing support (in alphabetical order):