China will strengthen its public health legislation and expects to review and approve the draft of the newly-formulated biosecurity law within this year, said Zhang Yesui, spokesperson for the third session of the 13th National People's Congress (NPC), at a press conference Thursday.

The NPC Standing Committee plans to formulate or revise 17 health-related laws in 2020 and 2021, and update 13 health-related laws in due course, Zhang said.

"China has over 30 laws on public health, which have generally withstood the test of the COVID-19 epidemic and played a positive role," Zhang said, adding that there are still some weak links and shortcomings in the legal framework.

One of the major tasks for the NPC Standing Committee next is to further strengthen China's public health legislation by formulating and revising related laws, he said.

The NPC Standing Committee will expedite revising the wild animal conservation law in the hope of submitting it for review in the latter half of the year, Zhang said.

The NPC Standing Committee will also expedite the revision of laws on animal epidemic prevention and on frontier health and quarantine, while carefully assessing the laws on infectious disease prevention and control and on emergency response, among others, for revision and improvement, he added.