The Ministry of Health kicked off a national campaign on Friday
to prevent a recurrence of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
(SARS)
epidemic, which it is feared might break out again this autumn or
winter, issuing nationwide anti-SARS guidelines for the country's
health system.??
Top health officials from all provincial governments of the
country wound up a two-day conference on Friday in Beijing, at
which they studied the guidelines and discussed how to work and
cooperate better in preventing another SARS outbreak, an official
told China Daily.
"These officials will go back to their own regions to make their
own working plans following the national guidelines, with
adjustments for the actual situation in their regions," said Yang
Jinrui, an official from the Ministry of Health.
The guidelines, in seven sections, include such items as work
aims, case diagnosis and reporting, prevention and control, medical
treatment, alerts and emergency aid, and examination of the
effectiveness of supervision and management procedures.
Meanwhile, to ensure that any possible SARS cases are identified
and reported as soon as possible, the ministry also issued a
special program to highlight surveillance, reporting, information
exchange and communication on SARS.
A national drill on how to deal with an outbreak of SARS will be
held before September 30 to ensure that the various departments and
regions co-ordinate, communicate and cooperate smoothly, according
to the new guidelines.
The guidelines stipulate that a state-level group of experts
must get to any site where a suspected SARS case is found within 24
hours to decide whether it is SARS or not.
The guidelines list Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Guangzhou,
with their large floating populations, as major regions for SARS
prevention work.
Special attention also should be given to medical workers,
migrant farm workers, hospitals, schools, kindergartens, and
construction sites, according to the guidelines.
The guidelines also separate SARS into three categories
according to degree of seriousness and range of the disease.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has also recently launched a
document, similar to the guidelines, on alerting the public and
verification of SARS cases, Maria Cheng, a spokeswoman for the WHO
office in Beijing, told China Daily on Friday.
(China Daily August 30, 2003)