WHO sets health goals for Beijing Games
By Zhang Feng (China Daily)
Updated: 2006-05-18 09:09 WHO official has called on
authorities take action to meet the immense challenge of handling public health
and emergency response issues during the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
"The influx of visitors in 2008 will add enormous challenges to daily
surveillance and reporting mechanisms regarding infectious, chemical,
environmental and non-communicable diseases," said Henk Bekedam, WHO
Representative in China.
"To tackle any possible public health accidents, a strong surveillance system
must be in place as soon as possible, not only focusing on the three-week long
Olympic Games, but also the months before," Bekedam noted.
The country has greatly enhanced its surveillance system following the SARS
outbreak, which attacked Beijing in 2003 and 2004, and the recent bird flu
problem, he added.
But he also warned China must strengthen epidemic surveillance capacity
building at lower levels.
"By this I mean that people who first find infectious disease outbreaks are
able to report them in a timely fashion," he said on the sidelines of the
Workshop on Public Health Safety and Emergency Response for the Beijing Olympic
Games.
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