China's Ministry of Health recently issued a circular, urging
regional bureaus to improve the mechanism to deal with outbreaks of
unidentified diseases and step up guard against plague, SARS, and
human cases of bird flu.
It calls for preventing plague along the Qinghai-Tibet railway
and around major construction projects.
The circular urges summarizing experience in SARS prevention and
control, improving preparedness plans and technology solutions so
that relevant work will be carried out in a scientific way. It
orders improving preparedness plans and technology solutions for
human cases of bird flu.
Ample preparations should be made to deal with a large outbreak
of flu and relevant government departments should share information
on bird flu epidemics timely, it says.
The circular also asked health bureaus to distribute pamphlets
to people about how to respond to public health emergencies, which
contain tips on how to avoid risks and disasters, how to save
themselves and how to save others.
(Xinhua News Agency February 21, 2007)