Guangzhou prepares for epidemics
By Zhan Lisheng (China Daily)
Updated: 2004-08-27 02:54

Guangzhou is moving to better deal with unexpected public health threats.

Its latest efforts include the expansion of a reporting network to rural areas, preparation for a new disease control centre, a hospital exclusive for contagious epidemics and training grassroots medical staff.

"The outbreak of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) last year taught us a good lesson," said Zhang Li, deputy director of the Guangzhou Bureau of Health. "What we will do is to improve the mechanism which took shape last spring when the SARS epidemic gained ground."

Guangzhou treated the first SARS patient last year and was once under a very severe threat of rampant spread.

Thanks to a series of timely and effective measures, the city's hospitals treated more than 1,000 SARS patients, realizing the highest rehabilitation rate and the lowest death rate nationwide.

The official said the city's emergency mechanism will primarily deal with cases related to infectious epidemics such as SARS and bird flu, food poisoning, and bio-chemical threats.

She said the information network for the precaution and report of unexpected cases will soon be expanded to rural areas.

At present, the network links 246 medical facilities throughout the city, very few of which are based in rural areas.

And any unexpected sanitation cases reported are supposed to reach the city's disease control centre within two hours.

Preparatory work for the new disease control centre has come to an end.

The centre is expected to start operating in three years.

With an investment of 300 million yuan (US$36 million), the new facility will be well capable of dealing with any unexpected sanitation case, she said.

She said the health bureau will compare notes more often with experts for a timely upgrade of the response mechanism.

Experts will also have more say in documents related to sanitation issues.

The city's recent schemes related to unexpected sanitation cases ranging from SARS, bird flu, Pasteurella pestis plague and dengue fever have all be modified on the basis of experts' opinions, she said.

As the next step, she said, all grassroots medical staff will receive training on epidemic prevention.

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