According to the regulations and requirements of the Law on Prevention and Control of Contagious Diseases and relevant government documents, the authorities of Beijing Municipality have released 10 epidemic control measures to combat severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS).
1. Prevention first
All city districts, departments and units must remain on high alert for detection, reporting, quarantine and treatment of SARS patients, and fulfill this work as early as possible; carry out investigations on contagious diseases; sort out those who had close contact with SARS patients in time and quarantine them in time so as to cut virus transmission channels, and provide appropriate services to safeguard them.
Efforts should be made to improve leadership and working mechanisms for prevention and control, as well as contagious disease investigation, making sure of sound operations for information networks. Working Regulations on Quarantine Work should be strictly implemented in key SARS sites.
Prevention and quarantine knowledge should be made known to all people. Prevention measures, like sterilization, have to be carried out in all public places, traffic vehicles, and population intensive spots. A strict supervision mechanism on SARS prevention and control should be set up.
2. Combating disease with community effort
Mobilize the strength of all of society; take full advantage of blocks, communities, residents? and villagers? committees. Party organizations and branches, pubic health service organizations from communities and residents? committees shall have full awareness of local disease conditions, and make efforts to appease the psychology of the people. These community-level organizations shall perform management responsibilities, level by level, dispatching teams to aid different resident patches, and cadres of these organizations shall assure their working objectives, covering all residents in their communities.
Healthy people shall take prevention measures, receive tests, and reduce their public activity as much as possible. Those who have had close contact with SARS patients shall receive frequent investigation, examination and supervision. All community residents and villagers have to be equipped with thermometers and their body temperature regularly tested; residents? and villagers? committees shall report every fever case to the upper levels. Every citizen has the responsibility to report conditions of SARS patients and those who have had close contact with them. Citizens who live in quarantine zones must follow quarantine measures made by public health departments.
Sub-district offices and communities shall sterilize residence buildings, culture and gyms as well as public health places regularly. All interior decoration projects must be suspended immediately. Personal hygiene, household and community sanitation must be improved.
3. Epidemic situation known and society?s supervision encouraged
All medical organizations take responsibility for strengthening the monitoring of the epidemic disease, verifying the epidemic situation promptly and accurately, and reporting exactly how things stand to municipal and district centers for disease prevention and control.
The Beijing joint working group on SARS will collect and compile the numbers and report the statistics to the Ministry of Health on a daily basis. The Ministry of Health in turn briefs the public on the latest epidemic situation everyday, which will be broadcast by the local media promptly. Starting April 28, Beijing municipality is to make known to the public the diagnosed SARS cases, suspected cases, isolated cases, and SARS quarantines.
The Beijing municipal government and the World Health Organization (WHO) will exchange SARS information, and cooperate completely and proactively to work out measures to prevent and control SARS. Specifically, Beijing will keep WHO updated with the epidemic situation and brief foreign embassies in Beijing, international organizations and foreign chambers of commerce in written English on a daily bases on the newest SARS situation as well as steps taken by the municipal government in the prevention and cure of the epidemic disease.
The Beijing joint working group on SARS is to hold two press conferences each week, informing Chinese and foreign media promptly of the city?s SARS situation and related eventualities.
The municipal government welcomes and encourages all circles in society to supervise the prevention and control of SARS in Beijing, and to put forward all kinds of comments and suggestions on fighting SARS.
4. Travel into and out of Beijing by plane, train or bus subject to quarantine
The Beijing Transportation Commission, Beijing Municipal Health Bureau, Beijing Public Security Bureau, the North China Branch of the Civil Aviation Administration and the Beijing Railway Bureau have organized joint inspection teams for airports, railway stations, long-distance bus terminals and highway checkpoints in Beijing.
Inbound and outbound travelers, as well as those checking in at hotels, are required to fill health declaration forms and have their body temperature taken. Travelers showing symptoms of fever must be sent to the health post and suspected patients will be transferred to the designated hospitals as soon as possible.
Passengers sharing a cabin or a carriage with the suspected SARS patient shall be visited by the epidemiological investigation team and put under steady medical observation. For those who refuse to take their temperatures or to be retained for further examinations despite repeated exhortations, the public security agency shall have to adopt coercive methods as necessary.
5. Strengthen prevention measures in schools and kindergartens
All colleges and universities, vocational and technical schools, primary and secondary schools, as well as kindergartens and nurseries in Beijing should give top priority to student and child health and strictly implement relevant prevention regulations by taking the temperature of the students every day, disinfecting public places such as classrooms, laboratories and canteens as well as dormitories, canceling all concentrated lectures and activities.
Colleges, universities and private schools should not suspend classes but properly adjust their teaching plans, forms as well as courses. Schools should strengthen close administration by strictly controlling outsiders entering the schools and asking teachers and students to stay at school. Students are not allowed to leave school without permission; students who are unhealthy and from rural, western and infected areas are not allowed to leave the school. Schools should get the immediate health condition of all their students who have left school and bring them into school epidemic inspection groups as well as reporting all information. Students who have left school and now ask for returning to the campus (include Beijing natives) shall be subject to isolation observation.
6. Strict control measures on migrant workers and construction sites
The Beijing Construction Committee has built an around the clock supervision network to inspect construction sites in the city. The dormitories, canteens and toilets of migrant workers should be disinfected regularly and their crowded living level should be reduced. Unqualified sites shall suspend work to make improvements.
The construction sites shall enforce closed management. If the work and living sites are in different places, the workers should be carried by shuttle bus. Employers are not allowed to send migrant workers back home. Healthy workers? prevention, quarantines of workers who had contact with patients and the infected workers? cure on site should be fulfilled strictly and directly.
The employers should pay the migrant workers full salaries on time and improve their food and living conditions. Medical expenses for SARS patients will be jointly shouldered by their employers and the government.
7. Enhance control measures for large-scale events and at cultural and entertainment facilities
Cross-province and cross-area large activities and meetings shouldn?t be organized in the Beijing area. Some activities (including performances) which have been arranged should be delayed or canceled. Internet cafes, cyber game rooms and video rooms shall be closed. The public service culture venues including theaters, cinemas, libraries, museums and culture centers should carry out SARS prevention action. Those which can not reach the epidemic prevention standards shall be closed and rectified. Those public entertainment venues which insist to do business should carry out the disinfection and check-up measures to prevent SARS, and at the same time establish a complete system for an epidemic situation report. Those who cannot reach the epidemic prevention standards but still do business will be punished according to the law. Family culture activities should be promoted. Outdoor culture and sports activities which are good for people?s health should be organized properly.
8. Strengthen control measures for conference, tourism or study tours outside Beijing
In order to stop the possible spread of the SARS virus, and prevent cross-infection, organizations, enterprises and schools in Beijing should not organize conferences, tourism or study tours outside Beijing. Unnecessary official trips should be canceled. Those study tours outside Beijing which have been arranged should be canceled immediately. Permission should be given by the supervisory authorities if such trips are absolutely necessary. The supervisory authorities should master and report the situation of the people who have to go outside Beijing in time. Residents are warned not to go to countries around Beijing and take tourism trips during Labor Day holidays. All travel agencies are required to suspend either domestic or international tourism arrangements for the time being.
9. Improve medical treatment with better technology and management
All the second-class hospitals and above are to practice ?first diagnosis responsibility system? so that SARS patients and SARS suspected patients are safeguarded to receive immediate medical treatment. For those SARS patients who need to go hospitals or transfer, the Beijing Emergency Aid Center should be available at any time so as to minimize risk of infection. In all hospitals it should be clear that senior medical personnel must be in charge of the SARS patients. Any hospitals that shun their responsibility or refuse to take in SARS patients will be punished.
The experts group should play a full role in the following fields: conducting group consultation for dangerous patients in connection with a rewarding system, enhancing research work by integrating medical resources. Beijing shall integrate all medical resources, choose excellent experts, use the most advanced equipment, use the highest operation standard to fight SARS, maximize admission and recovery rates, and reduce death and infection rates of all medical staff.
Strictly implement municipal government?s social aid mechanism concerning SARS patients, and give free medical treatment to farmers infected with the disease; for those SARS patients who enjoy a minimum living standard guarantee, the medical expenditures will be paid by the government; for those who have bought medical insurance, expenses will be paid by the medicare fund; for those urban dwellers who are registered unemployed, their medical expenses will be paid by the unemployment insurance fund; for other SARS victims who indeed have difficulty paying medical fees, hospitals should try their best to treat them, and municipal budgets will subsidize them according to actual conditions.
10. Give help and support to frontline medical staff
The physical and mental well-being of health workers fighting SARS on the frontline should be a priority. Every possible means must be explored to ensure that they have proper rest and nutrition.
(China.org.cn April 29, 2003)
