Nepal faces enormous epidemic prevention challenges: Chinese medical team

The possibility of the epidemic outbreaks is "high", while the risk of intestinal disease is "very high" in quake-hit areas of Nepal, according to an evaluation report on the public health risk of Nepalese earthquake released by Chinese government medical team Saturday.

Besides the evaluation report, the Chinese experts has tested 51 items on drinking water, epidemic diseases such as typhoid, flu and malaria, as well as food poisoning in Nepal according to the standards of WHO, which will guide the epidemic control in quake- hit areas, the team head Lu Lin told Xinhua.

The deputy head Zhang Rong worried about the high risk epidemic situation in quake-hit areas in Nepal.

Nepal has not established epidemic situation reporting mechanism, he said, adding that it's difficult to collect and analyze epidemic information.

However, the post-quake hygiene and epidemic control scheme made by Chinese medical team and Nepalese Health Ministry, military medical department and Nepalese Hygiene Research Committee is expected to set down on Sunday.

Zhang said that Chinese experts are training local medical personnels as best they can. More than 600 Nepalese medical personnels have been trained to join the epidemic control in the quake hit areas.

The Chinese medical team arrived Kathmandu on Wednesday.

The 59-member group includes experts in public hygiene, infectious diseases, traumatology, orthopaedics and emergency treatment, all from Yunnan Province. More than 85 percent of the team members have earthquake-relief experience.

The Chinese group has finished epidemic prevention for two camps, 59 tents, 30 garbage dumps and nine collapsed sites as of Friday. Endi