Authorities must take action to meet the immense challenge of
handling public health and emergency response issues during the
2008 Beijing Olympics, a World Health Organization (WHO) official
warned Wednesday.
"The influx of visitors in 2008 will add enormous challenges to
daily surveillance and reporting mechanisms regarding infectious,
chemical, environmental and non-communicable diseases," Henk
Bekedam, WHO Representative in China, told China
Daily.
"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 that China must strengthen epidemic
surveillance capacity 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.
Commenting on the threat posed by bird flu, which has killed 10
people so far in the country, Bekedam said that "if the virus fails
to become very easily transmittable between human beings by that
time, even if you find one or two human cases in China in June
during the Olympics, it will make no difference at all."
"We will do our best, depending on our surveillance system, to
monitor the symptoms of any infectious diseases, quickly issue
alarms and take effective emergency response measures," said Wang
Yu, director of Chinese Center for Disease Control and
Prevention.
China has established the world's biggest reporting system for
dozens of infectious diseases, Wang said, before adding that in the
coming two years, it will become an increasingly urgent task for
China to set up a surveillance system and an information-sharing
network.
Beijing has already established a comprehensive prevention and
control system, including surveillance and response, to contain new
or major outbreaks of infectious diseases, said Liang Wannian,
deputy director of Beijing Health Bureau.
Meanwhile, an emergency medical rescue network that covers both
urban and rural areas of Beijing has begun to take shape, Liang
said.
As well as infectious disease prevention, China has also begun
to work comprehensively in various public health fields.
For example, the Organizing Committee of Beijing Olympic Games
has already selected farming and breeding bases to provide foods
for the Games, said Dai Jianping, deputy director of Department of
Medical and Health Services of the organizing committee.
on these bases, strict tests and experiments are being done on
livestock and vegetables to ensure athletes and visitors are
offered the highest quality food available.
(China Daily May 18, 2006)
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